ISLAMABAD, March 20: Federal Minister for Industries and Production Abdul Razak Dawood said here on Wednesday that the government was according high priority to human resources development in all areas including engineering sector.

In a meeting with UK delegation of Engineers, he said Pakistan is gearing up its training institutions and universities to produce high quality engineers who can further undergo international certification with the help of financial assistance provided under Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).

He said that there was high degree of awareness about human resources development among all public and private sector organizations and enormous efforts are in hand to transform the human capital into acceptable standard of international competence.

He fully endorsed the idea of British engineers for developing the professional skills of Pakistani engineer commensurate with International standards and recognition. He said that there were 29 training institutes under ministry of commerce, industries and production run by private sector, which are imparting training in the skills of textiles, surgical, leather, plastics and chemicals, but there was a dire need of upgrading their training outfits to brig them at global standards.

The Pakistan government hopes that FDI will assist Pakistan in certifying their engineers as “International Engineers” to face the challenges of WTO by 2005.