ISLAMABAD: Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry on Thursday claimed that Pakistan sent over 1.1 million workers to different countries for various job assignments during the last three years despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sharing the statistics on his Twitter account, the minister expressed the hope that more than 2 million Pakistanis will proceed abroad for employment in the next two years.
As per the stats, Saudi Arabia is the largest recipient of Pakistani workers as 56,9870 people reached the kingdom during the last three years for various jobs, followed by UAE with 27,1775 Pakistani expats.
During the three-year period, 61,423 Pakistanis were sent to Oman, 53,692 to Qatar, 2,464 to UK, 1,943 to China and 1,157 to the US.
In total, Pakistan sent 1,026,640 workers abroad in the last three years.
Pakistan beat India, Bangladesh in manpower export in 2020
According to the Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis, the country has beaten Bangladesh and India in manpower export and has emerged as the "manpower export leader" in the region by sending around 224,705 workers to different countries for various jobs in 2020.
In a statement in July, the ministry said Bangladesh sent 217,699 workers abroad and India 94,145 for employment purposes during the same period.