Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication has proposed the government to give rebate on exports of IT & enabled services and separate it from other services in the upcoming budget 2018-19 to increase the sector exports to $10 billion by 2020.
This was stated by Minister of State for Information Technology and Telecommunication Anusha Rehman while talking to media here on Friday.
“IT sector should be excluded from the services sector. We should bring it forward by achieving high exports targets. Actual exports of IT & enabled services are around $4 billion, but exporters park their money outside the country. It is proposed to give them rebates so that the government can bring $2-3 billion immediately. Secondly it has been proposed to declare small areas as software economic zones,” she added.
Anusha Rehman said that at the time of her joining the office in 2013, there were some 350 companies registered with Pakistan Software Exports Board (PSEB). The number has now grown to 1,800 by now, she added.
Addressing the Pakistan Mobile Congress 2018, the minister said that that they have proposed Huawei to set a center of excellence in Pakistan for hardware manufacturing. This center should include products that are ‘Made in Pakistan’. Huawei is currently reviewing this proposal, she added.
She said that government has spent Rs 26 billion in uplifting Balochistan during the last five years, and now most of the areas in the province have 3G services.
The Minister further said that CEO Careem has agreed to launch ride-hailing services in Quetta soon as all ICT services are available for the same.
Building on the success of Mobile World Congress 2018 in Barcelona, Huawei, a leading global ICT solutions provider, held the first edition of Huawei Mobile Pakistan Congress in Islamabad under the theme “Enabling Future Together,”
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The Minister praised the efforts of Huawei in making the first ever mobile congress successful. She emphasized the importance of technological advancement and virtual assistance for the generations to come to bring this nation on path of technology evolution and prosperity.
5G Technology
The government is making all out efforts to introduce 5G technology in Pakistan by 2020 to bring it at par with developed economies in term of technology advancements. Huawei Mobile Pakistan Congress 2018 will help in developing a playing field for all stakeholders.
Huawei Pakistan Mobile Congress featured demonstrations of highly cutting edge mobile enabled products and innovations in Pakistan. The visitors experienced how mobile internet-enabled products are creating a better future for the citizens and businesses around the country, in diverse areas.
Over the five day event, the Huawei Mobile Pakistan congress featured topics such as 5G enabling, all flash storage arrays, video cloud, cloud data center, Huawei 5G network support 20 Gbps in hotspot areas, Xhaul, A 5G oriented transport network solution, digitization, cloud computing, and many others.
Presentations and keynotes highlighted Huawei’s enterprise solutions and the highly anticipated 5G technology to more than 100 attendees, including government officials, customers, channel partners, military officers and ICT industry experts. Attendees visited 17 Huawei booths, which held live demos of VoLTE, Next Generation Home Broadband, Intelligent Video Surveillance, Next-Generation Digital Campus and other advanced ICT solutions.
At the Mobile World Congress 2018 held in Barcelona in March, Huawei outlined a vision for 5G by unveiling their latest solutions and shared its vision for a collaborative ecosystem that can stimulate innovation and the development of 5G, All-Cloud network, video, and IoT technologies.
It received eight awards from GSMA including Outstanding Contribution to the Mobile Industry Award, which recognized Huawei for decades of advocating new technology, building out the digital ecosystem, and social responsibility.
