Islamabad: Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) will encourage and facilitate Local Content Providers to participate in the ICT based economy growth in the country.

In view of the importance of local contents and applications for future promotion of Information Communication Technologies (ICT) industry and infrastructure, PTA in collaboration with Motorola organized an exclusive conference on “Promoting ICT Sector” here, today. Secretary IT & Telecom, Naguibullah Malik, Chairman PTA, Dr. Mohammed Yaseen, Member (Finance) PTA, Syed Nasrul Karim Ghaznavi, Member (Technical) PTA, Dr. Khawar Siddique Khokhar, leading representatives from IT & telecommunication sector and renowned academic & research scholars attended the conference.

Through this conference, a unique platform was provided to potential content providers to present their applications and ideas linked with ICT usage and development. Nine (9) local content providers displayed their applications during the conference which were highly appreciated by the ICT industry.  This conference was planned to spot the latest access technologies in the country and understand the challenges faced by telecom industry in terms of high cost of ownership and OPEX.

Addressing the conference Secretary IT & Telecom said that for the promotion of ICT sector in Pakistan, there is an acute need of bringing consensus among the Government, IT Industry, Telcos and academia to map out effective strategies for the best utilization of available opportunities in this sector. In this regard, he appreciated this initiative of PTA for providing an important platform for some constructive dialogue and discussion.

Secretary IT drew attention of the participants to four main focus areas which could give a boost to the development of ICT sector. Those areas include IT & Telecom education, research, entrepreneurship and local industries. He said that to carry out productive work in these areas, support of an efficient policy is also mandatory, for which the Government is working extensively and soon this policy will be introduced to the industry.

Chairman PTA, Dr. Mohammed Yaseen said that the telecom sector of Pakistan has shown a rapid growth in the last few years. Especially the voice segment has been leading the other segments of telecommunication. Today, we have around 97.6 million cellular subscribers with total teledensity reaching upto 63.5%. However, the sector is still under-served as far as broadband is concerned.  He said that the key issue in further development of data segment is non-availability of local contents and applications which can contribute towards formulation of ICT-based economy.

He also highlighted the role of academia as a potential contributor of this sector. He said that a few educational institutes in Pakistan are already engaged in conducting useful research work but the contributory role of academia at large is, unfortunately, a ‘missing link’. At present, Pakistan’s telecom sector is in dire need of establishing strong academia linkage with industry and government to accelerate future technical excellence and entrepreneurship. He said that we need to encourage the participation of all stakeholders in this effort so that the issues, problems and barriers faced by the industry in the promotion of ICT sector may be highlighted and addressed properly hence the appropriate way outs to those problems can also be identified.

In reference to its endeavors for the development of ICTs in Pakistan, Dr. Yaseen said that PTA has taken number of initiatives to launch and promote new innovative solutions for the betterment of telecom industry and society and would continue its efforts till the set objectives are achieved completely. He invited all the stake holders to join their hands with PTA in order to bring about spectacular growth in the ICT sector as well as to enhance their own business in the market.

It may be mentioned that development of ICTs has become an important growth factor for countries around the globe. With every passing day, the world is edging into an information-based age. The rapid evolution of ICTs is clearly re-shaping daily lives, enhancing productivity and transforming the economies.

Khurram A.Mehran

Director PR