Budget briefing: ‘Jobs for 4m youth next year’

LAHORE: New employment opportunities will be created for up to four million youth in the next fiscal year, Rana Muhammad Arshad, parliamentary secretary for information and culture, said on Monday. He was briefing a delegation of political party activists on the upcoming budget. He said the government planned to equip up to two million more people with technical and vocational training in the upcoming fiscal year. The parliamentary secretary said other plans for the next fiscal year included lifting of up to seven million people above the income poverty line. He said in the next four years the government intended to raise economic growth rate of the province to eight per cent. He said budgetary allocations for the public health and education sectors had seen an unprecedented increase during the current government’s term. He said both sectors would be a priority in the upcoming budget as well. He said the population of the province was expected to double in 29 years and that of Lahore in 20 years. He said the government was taking into consideration these projections while formulating its growth and development policies.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 26^th, 2015.