Govt to introduce EOBI pension scheme for Pakistani expats

• The SAPM informed that the informal labor of the country would also be included in the plan.

In order to facilitate Overseas Pakistanis, the government will be launching Employees' Old-Age Benefits Institution (EOBI) pension scheme for the expatriates, informed Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Overseas Pakistanis Sayed Zulfikar Abbas Bukhari.

"It is the first time in the history of Pakistan that a government will be launching a pension scheme for Pakistani expats under the EOBI pension fund," Bukhari told the Standing Committee of National Assembly on Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development.

The SAPM informed that the informal labor of the country would also be included in the plan.

"It will be a major breakthrough as we are moving towards the national pension fund which will cover domestic laborers, brick kiln workers, freelance journalists, and others," he maintained while highlighting the government's social security initiatives for the overseas Pakistanis and the country's workers.

Facilitating Overseas Pakistanis is one of the main agenda of Prime Minister Imran Khan government, the premier has previously said that the government is mulling various options in this regard, including the issuance of health cards to the families of overseas Pakistanis.

Overseas Pakistanis remitted $11.394 billion in the first half six months (July to December) of the current fiscal year, as per the data released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP). The remittances showed a growth of 3.31 percent as compared to $11.030bn received during the same period last fiscal showed the central bank Country-Wise Workers' Remittances data.