Staff Reporter
Islamabad
The government on Thursday said that Pakistan’s information technology (IT) and IT-enabled Services (ITeS) export remittances have surged to $887.470 million at a growth rate of 26.24 percent during the July- February 2019-2020, compared to $702.990 million during the same period last year.
According the Economic Survey 2019-20 unveiled by Adviser to Prime Minister on Finance and Revenue Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh here at a news conference, foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow in the ICT sector (IT and Telecom) for the period of July 2019 – March 2020 was $ 605.8 million.
As per the survey, Pakistan is the 5th most financially attractive location in the world for offshore services, according to A.T. Kearney’s Global Services Location Index. In addition, freelancers and independent consultants are making their own mark in IT-enabled services as Pakistan is ranked as the 4th most popular country for freelancing as per initial data for 2019 of Online Labor Index by Oxford Internet Institute (OII). The survey further said that a new state of the art IT Park in Islamabad is being established under financing from Korea Exim Bank through the Economic Development Cooperation Fund (EDCF), with more than 61,000 square meters of covered area.
It would be a G+9 structure with two basements for parking. The total land available for IT Park Islamabad is 14.9 acres located in Chak Shahzad. The estimated cost of this project is $ 88.383 million for which the loan agreement has been signed, and the design phase of the project is now in progress.
This project will be completed and become operational in 2022. In addition to the above, a consortium of Korean consultants has been engaged to conduct a detailed feasibility study of establishing an IT Park in Karachi. The feasibility study is almost complete and project, worth $ 186 million, is expected to be funded through EDCF of Korea Exim Bank.
The national-level E-Government platform is running on NDC at National Technology Council (NTC) headquarter in Islamabad, which is compliant to international standards. To further improve the availability and reliability, NTC is establishing a geographically distant disaster recovery site in Lahore to overcome untoward scenarios in the face of natural calamities or national emergencies with a cost of around Rs 600 million, which will be operational in a couple of next months. This data center facility will essentially be a valuable addition to digital infrastructure for the public sector of the country.The Ministry of Information Technology & Telecom has reinitiated the stalled process of the formulation of the country’s first Personal Data Protection Act. In this regard, all comments received from stakeholders have been reviewed and appropriately incorporated. The draft has been updated, keeping in view the challenges, international best practices, and overall impact. The updated draft will be uploaded on the website for the final round of consultation in the 4th quarter of FY2020.
PTA has successfully launched DIRBS in the current fiscal year, and very encouraging results have been witnessed in terms of evaporating grey market, a substantial decrease in illegal/counterfeit devices, a significant drop in snatching/theft of devices and increased revenue to the government. FBR collected revenue of over Rs 28 billion in the first six months of FY2020 from mobile import taxes, which is expected to cross Rs 50 billion by the end of the fiscal year as against Rs 22 billion last year showing a potential increase of about 127 percent. PTA has also facilitated local manufacturing/assembling of mobile devices. Local manufacturing has been kick-started, and Pakistan produced over 11.7 million handsets in 2019, which is 126 percent higher than the previous year. Commercially imported legal handsets for the same period stood at 16.3 million, which is 26 percent higher than the previous year.
A total of 1,597,388 individuals have registered their devices during January- March 2020 out of which 666,767 registered through the FBR baggage rule exemption and others 1,378,099 registered after the payment of FBR custom duties. Commercial imports and locally assembled devices have increased tremendously after the launch of DIRBs in January, 2019.
Mobile licenses renewals are under process, and companies have already deposited $ 688 million in the national treasury, which is 50 percent of the total amount. This was done as per the government’s Policy Directive for renewal of the mobile cellular license of three operators, i.e., Telenor, Jazz and CMPak setting per megahertz (MHz) renewal price for frequency spectrum in 900 MHz and 1800 MHz as $ 39.5 million and $ 29.5 million, respectively. 5G is the latest technology which is available only in a few countries so far. To meet rising businesses and consumer’s demand for faster and more reliable mobile broadband services, PTA has allowed operators to test new technologies such as 5G. This will enhance the productivity and competitiveness of businesses to reshape the socioeconomic fabrics of our society.
