Ministry of Information Technology & Telecommunication has proposed the government to give rebate on exports of IT & enabled services and separate them from other services in upcoming budget 2018-19 to help increase exports of the sector to $10 billion by 2020. This was stated by Minister of State for Information Technology & Telecommunication Anusha Rehman while talking to media persons here on Friday.
The IT sector should be excluded from the services sector for achieving high exports targets. Actual exports of IT & enabled services are around $4 billion, but exporters park their money outside the country. It is proposed to give them rebate and the government can bring $2-3 billion immediately. Secondly, it has been proposed to declare small areas as software economic zones, she added. Anusha said that at the time of joining her office in 2013, there were some 350 companies registered with the Pakistan Software Exports Board (PSEB) but the number has now grown to 1,800.
Earlier, addressing the Pakistan Mobile Congress 2018, the minister said that Huawei has been proposed to set a centre of excellence in Pakistan for hardware manufacturing to be named 'made in Pakistan'. Huawei is reviewing the proposal, she added.
She said that the government has spent Rs26 billion in Balochistan during the last five years and now most of the areas enjoy 3G services. The minister further said the Careem CEO has agreed and going to launch cab services in Quetta in the offing, as all the ICT services are available there.
Building on the success of Mobile World Congress 2018 in Barcelona, Huawei; a leading global ICT solutions provider held its first edition of Huawei Mobile Pakistan Congress in Islamabad under the theme 'Enabling Future Together.' The minister mentioned the efforts of Huawei in making the first ever mobile congress successful. She underlined the significance of technology advancement and virtual assistance for generations to come for bringing the nation on the path of technology evolution and prosperity. She appreciated the role of Huawei in setting such a precedent to promote emerging technologies in Pakistan, by involving industry players and engaging the government to make it a reality.
The government is making all-out efforts to introduce 5G technology in Pakistan by 2020 to bring it at par with developed economies in terms of technology advancements. The Huawei Mobile Pakistan Congress 2018 will help develop level playing fields for all players and customers to develop better understanding of these technologies and prepare themselves to utilize them.
The Huawei Pakistan Mobile Congress featured demonstrations of highly cutting edge mobile enabled products and innovations in the country. The visitors experienced how mobile enabled products are creating a better future for the citizens and businesses around the country absolutely in different areas. During the five-day event, the Huawei Pakistan Mobile Congress featured topics such as 5G enabling, all flash storage arrays, video cloud, cloud data centre, Huawei 5G network support 20 Gbps in Hotspot areas, Xhaul, a 5G oriented transport network solution, digitization, cloud computing, and many others.
Presentations and keynotes highlighted Huawei's enterprise solutions and the highly anticipated 5G technology to more than 100 attendees, including the government officials, customers, channel partners, military officers and ICT industry experts. The attendees visited 17 Huawei booths, which held live demos of VoLTE, next generation home broadband, intelligent video surveillance, next-generation digital campus and other advanced ICT solutions.
At the Mobile World Congress 2018 held in Barcelona in March, Huawei outlined a vision for 5G by unveiling their latest solutions and shared its vision for a collaborative ecosystem that can stimulate innovation and the development of 5G, all-cloud network, video, and IoT technologies.
It received eight awards from GSMA including outstanding contribution to the Mobile Industry Award, which recognizes Huawei for decades of advocating new technology, building the digital ecosystem and social responsibility.