Pakistan to send up to 50,000 workers to Libya: The News

By Salman Siddiqui

KARACHI: Ambassador of Pakistan to Libya, Jamil Ahmed Khan, has said that around 30-50 thousand skilled and semi-skilled labourers would be sent from Pakistan to Libya by the end of the current calendar year.

He was briefing a group of journalists here the other day in the backdrop of President Asif Ali Zardari’s recent visit to Libya. “This was the first official visit from any president to Libya since Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s government ended,” he said.

At present, some 12,000 Pakistani employees are working in Libya, out of which 25 are rendering their services at top managerial posts, Khan said in reply to a question.

In 1974, around 0.15 million Pakistanis were working in Libya. However, relationship between the two countries cooled, as the Libyan head of state Colonel Moammar Gaddafi did not support the “governments of two dictators in Pakistan after the end of Bhutto’s government.”

Since President Zardari was a symbol of democracy the relationship between Pakistan and Libya was moving fast on the path of normalisation, he said.

In reply to a query, Khan said that cross-investment between the two counties would amount to $2 billion in the next two years, while Libya has shown interest to invest in the windmill sector.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan to send up to 50,000 workers to Libya: The News