Caretaker Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunications Dr. Umar Saif said that mobile manufacturing industry is the future of Pakistan and the government is providing incentives to the industry to boost local manufacturing of mobile phones in the country.
Speaking at “TECNO Pakistan Mobile Summit 2024” in Islamabad, Dr Umar saif said that during the last 60 days of the caretaker government, the IT exports of Pakistani have raised by 32 percent adding that the government aims at taking IT exports to $5 billion in the ongoing year.
The minister said that there is huge potential to excel in the information technology and we are working on fiber optics and spectrum mechanisms and providing vibrant environment to all the respective industry stakeholders of mobile manufacturing sector.
“Telecom is very important sector for Pakistani as telecom sector has 191m mobile subscribers, which hinted at the fact that this very big market for world cellular companies,” he said.
The minister said that textile and electronics have huge potential to enhance Pakistan’s exports and being young population, Pakistan can excel in these very sector with effective policies. He said that there are 35 international mobile brands that are manufacturing mobiles in Pakistan.
He said that the government is providing all respective incentives including zero regulatory duty for CKD and SKDs in Pakistan adding that the government is also providing sales tax exemptions for locally manufacturers or smartphone.
Dr Umer Saif said that currently smartphones manufactured in Pakistan have average price of 50 thousand rupees and these are 2G and 3G phones used by the masses. And the government is eyeing to build higher build phones in the country. He said that there are four companies in Pakistan manufacturing fibre optics locally with low cost.
He said that Pakistan has been going through a transition in view of telecom landscape stating that the entire telecom sector share 273MH of spectrum if compare to country like Australia, where a single telecom operator use 350MH of spectrum.
Major General (R) Hafeezur Rehman addressing the summit said that the government is providing every available facility to telecom sector to meet the rising needs of smart phones with locally manufactured mobile phones.
He said that the government supports every policy and framework designed to facilitate the mobile industry to ensure local production of smart phones in the country.
Chairman PTA Hafeezur Rehman said that TECNO has been playing very vibrant role in manufacturing of smartphones in the country and PTA aims at providing all available support in this regard to ensure smartphone for the of Pakistan at affordable prices.
He said that Pakistan Telecom Authority is available for telecom sector for support and assistance. He also said that we are also focusing on enhancing exports of smartphones from Pakistan following fulfilling the local requirements of mobile phones.
Talking about 5G networking in the country, he said that we have held couple of sessions with Ministry of IT and telecom sector with objectives to launch 5G in Pakistan. He said that connectivity is the basic engine and we are making efforts to ensure mobile connectivity in the remote areas of the country.
Meanwhile, the panelists speaking at the event expressed their respective issues stating that there is need of smart use of resources and the government with telecom stakeholders should devise effective mechanism to address the issues and challenges of this very sector. They said that the telecom sector is shouldering the economy and it should be given respective weightage.
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