Haier, a home appliances and electronics company based out of China, has confirmed Pakistani government that it will open a laptop assembly plant in Pakistan.
This deployment of laptop assembly plant is provisioned against a supply order of 100,000 laptops that government of Pakistan has agreed to buy from Haier for its Prime Minister Youth Programme.
The decision was reached during a meeting between Maryam Nawaz Sharif, Chairperson Prime Minister’s Youth Programme, and delegation of Haier Pakistan, comprising Mr. Khalid Afridi COO Haier Pakistan, Mr. Tristan Wong, GM Haier Computers, along with MD PTV.
Haier’s laptop assembly plant in Pakistan is realization of the efforts that were made recently by the government of Pakistan to equip the country with manufacturing facilities.
A salient feature of the Laptop Scheme launched under Prime Minister’s Youth Programme was the local assembly of laptops.
Now it has been decided that Haier is up to get a Laptop assembly plant running in the country. For the purpose, appropriate space will be allocated for setting up the Assembly line at Haier Pakistan premises in the outskirts of Lahore.
The laptop product coming out of the local assembly line will have label saying “Assembled in Pakistan”, whereas the same Haier model which is currently imported will be produced locally having same quality standards.
The local assembly of laptops is believed to small in numbers but this would certainly act as a seed initiative for the IT manufacturing industry.
Earlier, a contract signing ceremony for supply and commissioning of 100,000 Haier laptops to government of Pakistan was held at HEC Secretariat, Islamabad on Monday.
It is expected that the Government’s intent to continue this project for next four years.
Local assembling, which is expected to expand towards manufacturing, will contribute towards GDP and the re-export of the IT equipment out of Pakistan would bring significant economic impact as well as convey soft image of Pakistan internationally through a product labelled as “Made in Pakistan”.
Initially, this laptop assembly plant is aimed at meeting local demands primarily and then to export laptops to foreign nations in future.
In the long-run, the overall per unit cost of laptops is expected to decrease substantially and so will help leveraging ICT for socio-economic development of Pakistan.
Via The Nation
