Islamabad
Pakistan is set to take the next stage of development with hopes to leap up the list of ease-of-doing business by 20 to 30 notches, ambassador to the United States Asad Majeed Khan has said.
In an interview with David Bloom of The Forbes, the envoy said Pakistan is pushing its Information Technology sector to the US companies and investors, hoping international deals will translate to a bottom-line boost for the country’s struggling economy.
The interview under headline “A more peaceful Pakistan puts on an IT charm offensive in Silicon Valley” says that the most visible part of this fact came earlier this month with a day-long Silicon Valley conference in San Jose, California, backed by the Pakistani government.
“If I were to look at our overall economic performance, the IT sector comes out as one that has performed the best,” said Asad Khan, who was also one of the conference speakers.
“The whole idea of doing the tech summit was to inform the companies in the Silicon Valley about what is our potential and what is it we can do together,” he said.
More than 200 attendees heard pitches from 14 Pakistani start-ups seeking venture capital, along with panels on microelectronics, software development, artificial intelligence, gaming, medical innovation, and venture capital funding.
“Over the years, the government has not done as much as it should have in terms of focusing on expanding the IT sector,” said Ambassador Khan. “In past two or three years, though, we’ve seen some phenomenal growth.”
The Forbes said “in part that’s because the country’s charismatic new prime minister, former international cricket star Imran Khan, has made the economy his top priority.”—APP
