PM urges youth to tap Balochistan’s promising fisheries sector

QUETTA: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday said the coastal areas of Balochsitan offered immense potential in fisheries and asked the local youth to learn techniques to fully tap the opportunities for revenue generation.

Addressing at the ceremony of soft loan distribution among youth of Balochistan under Kamyab Jawan programme, the prime minister said the government would support the youth through proper training in fisheries and help them run their own businesses.

The prime minister expressed satisfaction over the allocation of Rs 10 billion for the small business and skill development of the people of Balochistan.

He proposed that learning of cage fishing technique as an aquaculture fish production system could prove beneficial for poor fishermen who were struggling to meet their ends.

He pointed that big cartels in fishery sectors were an impediment in removing poverty of fishermen.

Imran Khan said promotion of fisheries sector would help uplift the youth of Balochistan and would ultimately benefit Pakistan.

Senior Leader of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Muhammad Usman Dar, who is leading the Kamyab Jawan project said loans amounting to Rs8 billion had been disbursed among 10,000 youth which had helped create around 70,000 employment opportunities.

He said in line with the directions of prime minister, at least Rs5 billion would be distributed among the youth of Balochistan by this year end for supporting them in setting up their own businesses.

Earlier, the prime minister gave away cheques of soft loans to the successful candidates of Youth Entrepreneurship Scheme (YES) from Balochistan.

The programme was launched in October 2019 under the banner of Kamyab Jawan Programme to provide the youth soft loans for initiation of their own businesses.

Recently, the government has enhanced the scope of YES which was meant to offer huge amount of concessionary loans ranging between Rs 100,000 and Rs 25 million to the youth. Earlier, it was limited to Rs 5 million only.

According to the State Bank of Pakistan, the financing under YES has been segregated into three tiers. Under tier-1, loan limit is from Rs 100,000 up to Rs 1 million, whereas tier-2’s loan limit is from above Rs 1 million and upto Rs 10 million and under tier-3, loan limit is from above Rs 10 million and upto Rs 25 million.

For tier-1 loans, mark up rate is 3 percent, while mark up rate for tier-2 loans is 4 percent, and for tier-3, mark up rate is 5 percent.