President General Pervez Musharraf has expressed confidence that the future of information technology (IT) and telecommunication in Pakistan is extremely bright. He was speaking as chief guest at the inaugural session of the international conference on information and communication technology at a hotel here on Saturday.
The two-day moot is being held under the auspices of the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Karachi.
The President said that this sector is currently experiencing a boom. "I am very confident that the future of IT and telecommunication in Pakistan is extremely bright," he said and urged the young people to take up this profession.
The President said that he, however, knew that the youths were venturing into this very field.
He told the audience comprising IT professionals, experts, chief executives of various firms, faculty and students of IBA, Karachi, that Pakistan was going for e-governance in a big way. "We are looking for paperless governance," he added.
The President said this is the area of progress and where the country would be known as "progressive, modern, dynamic society and a progressive nation".
He said that by accelerating the introduction of 'paperless governance' quite a number of openings would be available to the professionals for e-governance and computerisation in the country.
Musharraf said that although the literacy rate in Pakistan was low, the country had good minds in Pakistan which possess qualified manpower.
About the economic activity going on in the country in the realms of telecommunication, he said that 14 million mobile phones were sold in Pakistan in the past two years and this showed that these instruments, worth about Rs 140 billion, had been bought by the people of the country and they were from the middle and lower-middle sections of the society.
The President said that privatisation of Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) had fetched $2.6 billion.
He said that the Government has ensured that a public sector monopoly is not passed on to private sector monopoly.
He said that as far as the fixed line was concerned it depended on fibre optic connectivity and the main issue in this area was 'the "backbone" and there was only one backbone channel running from south to north.
He said the Government opened this out and today there are a number of fibre optic backbones and, therefore, the monopoly on the fixed telephone lines will not be there.
Musharraf referred to the state of telecommunications at the time of his take-over in 1999 and said that the picture at that time was dismal, while the neighbour, India, was outsourcing in IT up to $4 to 5 billion and targeting more than $10 billion, "and we did not have even $100 million".
He said that people had to wait for years to get a telephone connection in the country at that point of time.
The President said that teledensity in the country at that time was barely 2.5 percent.
Therefore, he added, "we set about to rectify the position, and basic start point of the government was to revive the economy of the country "because that is the main driving force of any other area".
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