Qatar has opened a visa facilitation centre in Islamabad to facilitate acquisition of visas by members of the Pakistani work force, Radio Pakistan reported on Friday.

Syed Zulfikar Bukhari, special assistant to the prime minister on overseas Pakistanis and human resource development, and Qatar's Ambassador to Pakistan Saqar Bin Mubarak inaugurated the centre.

With the development, Pakistan has become one of the eight countries to have a Qatari visa facilitation centre for swift processing of workers' visas.

Bukhari, while speaking to the media after the ceremony, said that Doha had promised 100,000 jobs for Pakistani workers and the process in this regard has been initiated.

The adviser added that the government was also in talks with Doha to adjust in Qatar skilled members of the labour force returning from Saudi Arabia.

The Qatari ambassador said that visa process had been handled by the Qatari government in the past but now applicants could get their visas processed and approved through the centre in Islamabad.

Qatari Foreign Minister Moham­mad bin Abdul Rahman Al-Thani had, in a meeting with Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in November, offered 100,000 jobs for skilled and semi-skilled workers from Pakistan.

The trade between the two countries had increased by 104 per cent to about $1.6 billion in 2017 from $782 million in 2016.