South Korea would train 30 Pakistani experts in broadband internet and e-government areas as part of enhancing co-operation between the two countries; whereas China has promised to send a team to prepare a feasibility report for setting up IT parks in Pakistan.
The offers were made by Minister for Information and Communication of Korea Daeje Chin and Vice-Minister for Information and Industry of China Jian Yaoping, during a meeting held in Busan Korea with the Minister for Information Technology Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari on Wednesday.
Awais Ahmad Leghari, who was leading a 41-member delegation to the ITU Telecom Asia 2004 currently in progress in Busan, held an in-depth meeting with his Korean counterpart to seek a broader relationship between the two countries in the field of telecom.
"We have come far from the point where we sought a vendor-buyer relationship as our effort now was to forge strategic relationship based on mutual partnership with telecom players in the region," he told the Korean Minister.
He said Pakistan was aggressively working on the formulation of a broadband policy which would be out very soon to roll out much cheaper and affordable high-quality broadband internet service to the people.
Awais said his country would be happy to receive help and expertise from Korea which was one of the leading countries with broadband internet users.
Later in the day, Awais Ahmad Leghari held detailed meetings with Iranian Minister for Information & Communication Dr Seyed Ahmad Motanedi and Vice-Minister for Information and Industry of China Jian Yaoping.
He discussed with them avenues for enhancing co-operation between Pakistan and the two countries.
Awais Leghari offered the Chinese Minister to set-up software technology parks in Pakistan for which the government would provide all necessary facilities to the Chinese industry.
Welcoming the offer, Chinese Minister promised to send a team to Pakistan to prepare a feasibility report for setting up such parks.
Meanwhile, reports from the ongoing ITU 2004 exhibition in Korea were also very encouraging for the Pakistani software industry as the range and quality of products put on display by Advance Communications, an Islamabad-based software company, drew appreciation from all the global telecom giants exhibiting at the event.
Awais Ahmed Leghari, who also visited the stall put up by Advance Communications, working in the very advanced field of voice over IP based billing solutions, used his influence to arrange for high-level meetings of the company's officials with the largest Korean telecom player Korean Telecom.
"I am pleasantly surprised to see that Pakistan has developed such advanced software products," said a senior official of the biggest Chinese telecom firm, Hua Wei who visited the Pakistani stall.
The official said he had asked his technical team to have immediate discussions with the company to see how we can integrate that software into our solutions.
The Pakistan pavilion at the ITU exhibition was being visited by a number of companies eager to develop business relationships.
The recent deregulation in the telecom sector in Pakistan has made waves in the global marketplace as is evident by the great interest shown, by all other exhibitors at the ITU, in what Pakistan has to offer.
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