By Faiza Tehseen Islamabad, Nov 01 (INP-WealthPK): Cottage industries or small-scale units are a blessing for developing economies, as they are a major source of self-employment for skilled and unskilled labour, and contribute handsomely towards reducing the unemployment rate. Small-scale units constitute the backbone of developing economies, especially those of agriculture. Pakistan is one such developing country where the cottage industry sector is striving to grow and expand. In spite of its huge potential, unfortunately, this sector has been underperforming, contributing just 5% to the GDP. Though a number of state-owned corporations and boards like the Pakistan Small Industries Corporation (PSIC), Punjab Small Industries Corporation (PSIC), Sindh Small Industries Corporation (SSIC), Small Industries Development Board (SIDB), NWFP and Directorate of Small Industries, Balochistan (DSIB) have taken steps to improve and promote this industry, still there are areas that are yet to be accessed properly. As a result, a great margin to improve the GDP is being lost. There are a number of roadblocks, which impede and retard this sector’s progress. The major roadblock is that a sizable labour force dwelling in our remote and rural areas dealing with the traditional articles is restless and untrained. This workforce could be trained to be more skilful and output giving by still keeping their traditional trade. Another serious problem is that a large number of educated and competent women live in villages but due to cultural or religious barriers, they are not free to work outside of their homes. Unavailability of official data on the current development scale of cottage or small scale is yet another problem. In order to fully exploit the huge potential of this vital sector, the government needs to impart professional training to the people in villages according to their area, ability and division of work. With the changing times, it is also important that the government should use social media channels to convince people to accept and welcome new modes of qualitative work, skills and opportunities for new experiments. If we compare our situation with China, we see that the Chinese have distributed multiple working tasks to different living areas and launched a properly investigated policy of demand and supply under controlled measures. The policy of work distribution among different rural areas has worked wonders there. As a result, a good number of people not only have become employed but the trend of migration towards the urban areas seeking work has also been reduced. Annual per capita disposable income of rural and urban households in China from 1990 to 2020 (in yuan). (Published by C. Text HYPERLINK & quot; https://www.statista.com/aboutus/our-research-commitment" o HYPERLINK & quot; https://www.statista.com/aboutus/our-research-commitment"r , Jun 25, 2021) ( https://www.statista.com/statistics/259451/annual-per-capita- disposable-income-of-rural-and-urban-households-in-china/ )   The annual per capita disposable income for rural households in China was recorded 17, 131-yuan app. Over the past 20 years, China’s rural areas have improved significantly. China has practically demonstrated how rural areas can be developed by providing a proper economic plan to earn livelihood on the doorstep. A few factors like proper training, clearer work direction and acceptance of change have made the Chinese people realize that the traditional ways are not sufficient enough. They are only modifying their traditional ways of production and not abandoning them because Chinese love and pride on their traditional values. Pakistan needs to follow the Chinese approach according to its geographical conditions and work potential of different areas. The Chinese model is an open sesame to Pakistan to fully harness the potential of its cottage industry. Our farmers can also be trained in new agricultural methods, machines, markets, supply demand and automation. If produced with obsolete machinery and traditional craftsmanship, our handicrafts, handmade carpets, sports goods etc are the most demanding articles in the international market fetching 30% of foreign exchange to the national coffers, then a huge success could be achieved with proper planning at the government level. With state patronage, the cottage industry sector is more than enough to shore up Pakistan’s ailing economy.