By Rafiq Vayani
DUBAI: To work on ease of living and financial inclusion of Pakistanis working in Dubai, Careem, the leading technology company in the greater middle east in collaboration with the Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis, hosted a meeting with Pakistani Captains who formulate the highest number of Captains across the Gulf region.
The meeting was attended by Mudassir Sheikha, CEO, and Co-Founder of Careem along with Junaid Iqbal, Managing Director of Careem Pakistan and Zulfiqar Bukhari, Special Assistant of the Prime Minister for Overseas Pakistan along with 50 Pakistani Captains working in Dubai.
There are around 9 million Pakistani living out of Pakistan in a desire for economic prosperity, who have great support to Pakistan in terms of sending remittances via proper banking channel. This money has been the primary source of remittances in foreign exchange starved economy of Pakistan. Currently standing at 22 billion dollars, on average overseas Pakistanis are sending around 1.7 to 1.9 billion dollars a month. Amongst this remittances, 82 percent are received from 5 countries which are KSA UAE, USA, UK, and Malaysia.
Commenting on the occasion is Mudassir Sheikha, CEO, and Co-founder of Careem: We were honoured to host Zulfiqar Bukhari, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister for Overseas Pakistanis at our HQ in Dubai. It gave us a valuable opportunity to discuss ways in which we can improve the lives of Pakistani Captains in the UAE and across the Gulf region.”
He added: “We believe that it’s the hard work and dedication of these men and women that have helped us succeed as an organization. We hope to drive more initiatives such as this across the region, to emphasise that the wellbeing of our captains is a top priority for Careem.”
To further facilitate the collaboration, Junaid Iqbal, the Managing Director of Careem Pakistan is working with the Ministry of Overseas to develop special promo codes for Pakistanis travel home. Furthermore, a team will be formulated to work with various governments in Gulf countries to increase the number of Pakistani expats.
Zulfiqar Bukhari, Special Assistant for Overseas Pakistan commented “The government tremendously values the contribution of overseas Pakistanis to the economy of Pakistan, and will take every measure to ease out their living outside of Pakistan, from the perspective of financial inclusion and investment back home”.
