Country's telecom sector has attracted record inflow of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) during the last three years, which has crossed 3 billion dollar mark. This is continuing and new companies are investing in their network and infrastructure build up.
In the infrastructure companies including Telecom Malaysia are laying optic fibre cables. Telekom Malaysia has plans to invest more than 100 million dollar in laying their optic fibre connecting more than 107 cities of Pakistan.
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), in its quarterly report said the telecom sector attracted 472 million dollar FDI during the last half year in which only 133.2 million dollar was under privatisation proceeds of Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL).
"This shows that 72 percent of telecom FDI is purely new investment mostly in expansion of infrastructure and services and eliminates the misconception in some quarters that privatisation is the dominant component of FDI in telecom," it added.
During the last few years, this sector has witnessed astounding growth as a result of credible government policies and prudent role of the regulator, the report said and added this has resulted in the above 109 percent average annual growth rate of overall tele-density during the last two fiscal years.
The sector exhibited the same growth trends in the first two quarters of fiscal year 2006-07. Currently the overall tele-density in the country is crossing 37 percent.
The report said besides astounding growth, this sector is also contributing increasingly in the government exchequer through various taxes and regulatory duties. The major component of these collections is GST/CED, collection of which, remained Rs 16.92 million during the first six months of this year which is 43 percent higher than the same period last year.
The mobile contribution in total telecom GST/CED collection is also increasing and during second quarter of 2006-07, its share was 77.7 percent as compared to 66.9 percent during the corresponding quarter last year. The report said as there is churning of fixed line traffic to mobile and minutes of use of mobile communication has increased, so is the GST/CED collection from mobile.
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