November 30, 2003	Sunday	Shawwal 5, 1424

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NEW YORK, Nov 29: Industries and Production Minister Liaquat Jatoi said on Friday that at least three million jobs would be created in the public and private sectors within a year.

Talking to Dawn, he conceded that the government had not been able to compile the data of the unemployed people but said he would seek to create such a database in cooperation with the relevant departments. “We have to have a data on the number of unemployed in the country,” he said.

Conceding that there was a lot of unemployment and the positive economic reports being projected by the government had not had an impact on the common man, Mr Jatoi said: “We need to tackle this issue.”

“The common man must feel the impact of positive economic changes in the country,” he said.

Maintaining that three million jobs had been created during the last two years, Mr Jatoi said: “I can safely say that two to three million people will get jobs soon. It will be a joint venture of both the private and public sectors.”

“We are encouraging the private sector and foreign investors to come and begin small and medium enterprises,” he said and added that the privatization programme was under way.

“There is a lot of liquidity in the banks and they are ready to lend money to the private sector,” he said.

In response to a question, he said: “I believe strongly that we need to upgrade our outdated machinery with new equipment in the industrial sector and we want to have more skilled people to run these industries.”

He said: “We are currently investing Rs450 billion to create a skilled work force for the industries.”

He said the textile industry was contributing 75 per cent of the country’s exports and “we need to go into value addition in the sector.”

“We do not have a long-term policy and planning in the textile sector, which needs to be rectified,” he said. He stressed the need for value addition in the products by the private sector.

The minister said: “We have to create an environment of investment and business by rationalizing the tariff and upgrading the textile and mining sectors.”

He claimed that the government had succeeded in bringing about a turnaround in the steel and cement industries.

He said: “We have established business support centres at the Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation to provide necessary information to the investors.” He said the centres would also take care of issues related to corruption. “Our officers will do all the work to help them set up their businesses without any bureaucratic barriers, which result in bribes,” he claimed.

Mr Jatoi who came here to attend the United Nations General Assembly session, which is at it’s end with hardly any meetings taking place due to the extended holiday season, defended his presence here. “We have a lot of meetings to attend in the coming days,” he said.