ISLAMABAD - Pakistan's automobile industry needs a million skilled persons per year and the present training institutions cannot meet this demand, therefore, the committee should draw a road map to meet the training need of the sector. Representatives of the industry told a meeting of the sub-committee on Human Resource Development (HRD) at Engineering Development Board (EDB) here on Tuesday that the industry was facing a severe shortage of skilled manpower to make it global competitive. The meeting was presided over by its Chairman Sikandar Mustafa Khan. EDB will establish two Centres of Excellence at Karachi and Lahore to meet the current and future requirements of HRD in auto sector. "Two specialised companies have already been established to complete formalities in this regard. The existing training institutes such as NAVTEC, TEVTA, NUST and Higher Education Commission (HEC) will provide necessary inputs for these Centres," said a statement issued here by EDB. The ECC of the Cabinet had approved Auto Industry Development Program (AIDP) in November last year. To steer AIDP auto industry development committee (AIDC) was formed in February this year that decided to constitute sub-committees to steer different programmes under the AIDP. HRD is one sub-committee to form recommendations for development of HRD in the auto sector. The committee in its maiden sitting deliberated and decided its terms of reference. The representative of HEC gave a presentation on their programme to train technical manpower from top ranking universities of abroad. The representatives of industry underlined the need of introducing the subject of auto engineering at graduation and master levels. The meeting was informed that graduation course has already been started at Karachi and master level degree will be introduced at NUST in next year. The vendor industry offered to share data collected by them regarding needs requirement of the industry and progress made in foreign collaboration. They recommended following the model of Malaysia.