Pakistan has more mosques, madrassas than factories? Economic census reveals surprising details
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "Pakistan has more mosques, madrassas than factories? Economic census reveals surprising details")
Exterior of a Mosque Photograph: (ANI)
The census comes at a time Pakistan is looking to seal a deal with the International Monetary Fund for the second review of the USD 7 billion bailout package in order to revive its economy.
Places of worship in Pakistan have mushroomed exponentially in the last few years. In first ever economic census release by Minister for Planning Ahsan Iqbal, there are a whopping 600,000 mosques in the country, which surprisingly is way higher than 23,000 factories plying in Pakistan. While religious seminaries are 36,000, again higher than the number of industries in the country.
Though, there are 643,000 small production units across Pakistan, according to the report.
Obtained as part of the population census, the report was officially released on Thursday (Aug 21), reported the Express Tribune.
The census comes at a time Pakistan is looking to seal a deal with the International Monetary Fund for the second review of the USD 7 billion bailout package in order to revive its economy.
According to the report, most of the 600,000 mosques and over 36,000 religious seminaries are located in the Punjab province.
The data revealed that there are 40 million permanent units, out of which 7.2 million are employment structures where 25.4 million people worked as of 2023.
Trending Stories
&im=FitAndFill=(700,400))
)
)
)
)
&im=FitAndFill=(700,400))
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
&im=FitAndFill=(700,400))
)
)
)
)
)
&im=FitAndFill=(700,400))
)
)
)
)
)
&im=FitAndFill=(700,400))
)
)
)
The maximum numbers of people are engaged in the services sector that accounts for 45 per cent or 11.3 million of the 25.4 million workforce.
Second in number is the social sector where 7.6 million people are employed, which is 30 per cent of the total workforce. While the production sector employed 22 per cent.
"Credible data is the backbone of sustainable development, as it enables evidence-based planning and effective decision-making," said Iqbal while launching the report.
After the population census and the agriculture census, the economic census -first ever- was the third such detailed report by the planning ministry in Pakistan since 1947.
An attempt in this regard was made in 2003 but it failed as activity-related questions were added into the population census framework, reported the Express Tribune.
On the contrary Pakistan's neighbour India has conducted seven economic censuses, while Bangladesh, which was earlier a part of Pakistan and split in 1971, has so far conducted three such censuses.
