The Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunications was informed that exports of information technology (IT) sector stand at $3.3 billion and as many as 1,600 IT companies are registered in the country. The committee met with Senator Rubina Khalid in the chair here at the Parliament House on Friday. The committee discussed projects and achievement of information technology and telecommunication sector and the issues relating to cyber crime.
The committee decided to call officials of FIA, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and Ministry of Law in the next meeting to discuss the application of cyber crimes law and to see how effective this initiative has proven in countering cyber terrorism, social media crime, dark website and cyber crime.
The officials of Ministry of Information, Technology and Telecommunication briefed the committee about the role, mandate, functions, recent assignments, projects and achievements and an overview of the IT and telecommunication sector. While briefing the committee about the IT sector it was told that estimated exports of the sector are currently at $3.3 billion and the country has 1600 registered IT companies. They told the committee that export of IT and IT enabled services stand at $ 2.8 billion while revenue amount is $4 billion.
They said that increase in IT remittances from 2012-13 to 2017-18 remained 150 percent. They said that the country produces a total of 20,000 graduate students and engineers per year. The meeting was told that Pakistan at present has 59.94 million broadband subscribers and freelances revenues are $0.5 billion. They said that the country has a total of 91,549 kilometers of optic fibre length.
About Pak-China border fibre link project, the meeting was told that approximately 75 percent work has been completed. They said that project cost is $44 million (85 percent FEC through soft loan by Chinese Ministry of Commerce through EXSIM Bank and 15 percent local component). They said that it is alternate international connectivity for Pakistan and China.
The committee also deliberated upon the hitches in the PTCL agreement between Pakistan and UAE governments, high taxation on mobile cards, project of IT parks, digital Pakistan policy, e-commerce project, biometric verification of SIMs, telecommunication policy and online consumers' rights.
The committee will take up all these matters in detail in the upcoming meetings along with the issue of fake IDs on social media and international roaming of Afghan telecommunication services near border areas. The meeting was attended among others by Senator Rukhsana Zuberi, Mian Ateeq Sheikh, Ghous Muhammad Niazi, Abdur Rehman Malik, Ashok Kumar, Fida Muhammad, Additional Secretary IT&T, Member IT, Member Telecomm, MD TIP and other officials of the ministry.
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