The Minister of State for IT and Telecom, Ishaq Khan Khakwani, has said that the 'Electronic Crime Bill' has been designed and examined and would be tabled before the Federal Cabinet in the next meeting.
He was addressing the inaugural session of the 4th International Conference and Exhibition on 'e-Banking' here on Tuesday. The conference was organised by 'Total Communications' and supported by Sindh government, Pakistan Software Houses Association (Pasha) and Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB), besides 'Business Recorder' as media partner.
The minister said he believed that the Bill would not only dissuade the sophisticated criminals from hatred activities but would also improve transparency, enhance efficiency and security besides removing flaws that sometimes occur in the electronic transactions.
He lauded the efforts of some of the government-owned institutions and departments that have adopted modern techniques to secure their confidential data and improved accuracy.
"Some of our (government) departments and institutions have implemented modern techniques and standards to secure data, while some of the institutions are in the phase of implementing the same practice," he said.
He said that a few years back, the behaviour of banks staff was somewhat unfriendly towards their clients and people had to wait a lot just to get their balance checked. "But now, the trend has changed because of globalisation, strict and improved role of regulatory bodies and the modern international techniques adopted by the banking sector," he added.
Awareness among masses, according to him, was also a key factor in banking revolution that has resulted in creating competition among the banks as the people had been asking for improved services besides modern, electronic and online banking.
Khakwani drew attention of the participants towards one of the fastest growing IT and telecom sectors of the country. "Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the country's telecom sector recorded at $494.4 million during 2004-05," he said. "Fixed line telephone subscribers across the country touched the 5 million mark, while some 27 million cellular phone subscribers were registered during the same period, which have now increased substantially," he remarked.
He said that the number of internet users all over the country had increased and crossed the 5 million figure.
"The international and domestic bandwidth rates have also been reduced to $1600 per two megabits from $2000 per two megabits," he added.
Earlier, Managing Director of Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB), Yusuf Hussain, said that some Pakistani companies were adopting and maintaining the international practices and standards and they would soon get the CMM certification (a US certification) by the end of this calendar year (2006).
He apprised the conference participants that PSEB has selected 2,500 students from 200 colleges, universities and companies under an 'internship program' for a top-class internship training program, that would not only help them out in embellishing their skills, but would also let them know 'what is happening around the globe'.
Unveiling future programs of the PSEB, Yusuf said, "From now onwards, 2,500 students under the said training program would be selected every year."
He said that the government intends to promulgate a law as soon as possible that would discourage elements who indulge in data theft and electronic crimes.
A number of national and multinational companies participated in the exhibition and displayed their state-of-the-art products relevant to online and e-banking solutions.
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