950820

5-day seminar opens

Proper development

of human resources

vital for prosperity

RECORDER REPORT

LAHORE: Pakistan can become a prosperous country with proper development of its human resources, Mohammad Naeem, Vice-President of the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry observed here on Sunday while inaugurating a 5-day seminar on Human Resource Development.

The seminar is being jointly organized by the International Labour Organization, Employers Federation of Pakistan and the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry at chamber premises.

The inaugural session of the seminar was also addressed by Mohammad Mustafa Sharif, Secretary General, EFP, Raphael F Crowe, Senior Specialist of ILO on Employers Activities, Iftikhar Mahmood Randhawa, Managing Director, Ravi Rayon and Mohammad Pervaiz Malik, Co-convener of the LCCI's Standing Committee on Labour.

The LCCI Vice-President Mohammad Naeem emphasised need to promote quality control in the industrial sector particularly in the export-led industries of Pakistan so as to compete with other industrial countries of the region in the international market. He was of the firm opinion that wihtout promoting the vocational training amongst our workers, production of the quality products was not possible which is in fact a prerequisite to capture the export market. Naeem further said that under new charter of the World Trade Organization, the restrictions like quota system are going to be abolished in the near future, after which the international market will become a real free market. He said that a real free market would be competed only with the high quality exportable products.

He paid rich tributes to Pervaiz Malik, EFP and the ILO who were busy in filling the human resource development gap in Pakistan by holding seminars and workshops on this issue.

Mohammad Mustafa Sharif, Secretary General of the EFP, in his address, said that under the able guidance of ILO his organization had developed a conducive industrial climate in Pakistan through a tripartite cooperation of the employees, employers and the government.

He said that all the achievements made in Pakistan in the labour-management relations was due to the personal efforts of Ruben Dudly, who as a Country Director of ILO for Pakistan had undertaken innumerable training programmes for developing the skills of employees and employers on modern lines.

Earlier, Raphael F Crowe, Senior Specialist of the ILO on Employers Activities, highlighted his services for development of the labour-management relations. He said that with an office based in New Delhi, he was providing technical advisory services to Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan in the South Asia Region.

Raphael said, besides developing the activities of employees and employers towards positive direction, his organization was providing technical assistance to these countries on industrial relations, vocational training, labour administration and labour market strategies etc.