National Vocational and Technical Training Commission (NAVTTC) Chairperson Gulmina Bilal Ahmad met with Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) President Nasir Mansoor Qureshi and a delegation of overseas employment promoters to address bottlenecks in manpower export and agree on closer coordination to facilitate overseas employment. The meeting focused on NAVTTC’s skill-development initiatives, verification procedures for Saudi employment, and industry requests to simplify approval processes and certain trade-testing requirements.
Gulmina Bilal Ahmad, accompanied by NAVTTC officials including Suleman Mirza, Director NSIS, and Zeeshan Ali of Takamol, led discussions at the ICCI meeting attended by a delegation of overseas promoters headed by Faheem Iqbal, chairman of the Pakistan Overseas Employment Promoters Association (POEPA), and Umar Hannan Qureshi, Convener of ICCI’s Export of Manpower and Overseas Pakistanis Committee. Other participants included Abdul Rehman Qureshi, Muhammad Talha, Noor Fatima Alvi, Saeed Khan, Zia Qureshi and Zanab Khan.
Ahmad highlighted NAVTTC’s nationwide initiatives to equip youth with market-relevant skills and to empower women in trades traditionally dominated by men, noting the Prime Minister’s active interest in advancing the country’s skilling agenda. She emphasized NAVTTC’s role in aligning training with international market demands and pledged to address genuine concerns raised by overseas promoters.
On operational matters, Ahmad outlined NAVTTC’s collaboration with Takamol to ensure Pakistani workers meet Saudi employment requirements through mandatory skill verification tests conducted at NAVTTC-approved centers in Pakistan. She said this verification process is designed to meet international standards and facilitate smoother labor mobility.
Delegation leaders Faheem Iqbal and Umar Hannan Qureshi raised specific grievances affecting overseas promoters, pointing to delays in approval processes, procedures they described as irrational, and a call to abolish the NAVTTC trade test requirement for loaders and unloaders. They urged procedural reforms to reduce bottlenecks and speed up manpower export.
ICCI President Nasir Mansoor Qureshi praised NAVTTC’s transformative role in Pakistan’s technical and vocational training sector and stressed that close collaboration between NAVTTC and the business community is crucial for producing a workforce aligned with industry and global market needs. He offered ICCI’s full cooperation in promoting training programs that enhance youth employment, empower women, and facilitate labor mobility to markets such as Saudi Arabia and China, and proposed ICCI support for hosting joint programs, awareness sessions and workshops.
The meeting concluded with a mutual commitment to strengthen coordination between NAVTTC and ICCI to streamline approval processes, resolve promoters’ issues and better prepare Pakistan’s workforce for overseas employment opportunities.
