JEDDAH, 29 April — Pakistan, which is targeting $1 billion IT exports, is adopting aggressive measures to capture a fair share of the Saudi Arabian market. A Pakistani delegation from leading information technology (IT) companies will visit the Kingdom later this year, according to Science & Technology Minister Dr. Attaur Rahman.
“We need 30,000 to 40,000 professionals to achieve the export target of $1 billion. And if we aim at a $3 billion exports then we will need 100,000 IT professionals. So the need of the hour is to invest in manpower and human resources and not so much in brick and mortar,” the minister said addressing Pakistani IT experts at a community gathering at the Consulate General of Pakistan yesterday.
“As part of the measures, which have started paying dividends, we’re launching a 24-hour interactive TV channel dedicated to IT education. The fee for access to the channel will be 1,200 rupees or $20 a month per head.”
Consul General Rizwanul Haq in his introductory remarks said the consulate website launched by the minister had turned out to be a “big success.” He said the country had attracted investments worth several billion rupees in the IT sector since the minister assumed charge of science and technology on March 14, 2000.
The minister highlighted the progress in the IT sector during the past one year, and said: “When I assumed charge as a federal minister, the country did not have an IT policy. Soon after my arrival, we set up expert groups to evolve an IT policy and action plan.
“This was followed by establishment of advisory panels. We made it clear that it was for the private sector to come forward and meet the challenges of the IT sector, and it was for the government to clear bottlenecks and remove red tapism. The government’s role remains providing infrastructure for the private sector to function. So the government’s role is essentially to promote education by setting up professional institutions and improving the quality of human resources. Since then a large number of training programs have been formulated and implemented.” By ‘enabling measures,’ the minister meant incentives given to IT enterprises by way of tax holiday, customs duty exemption, and privileges to US start-up companies of Pakistanis including loans without collateral. The promoter of an IT firm can now get license within seven days.
“I follow the progress of each applicant myself and so there will be no delay anywhere on any account,” the minister said, adding that he personally attended to all e-mail messages addressed to him.
He declared that it was his government’s policy to offer contracts related to software development only to national companies. Such companies could seek overseas expertise in partnership, if required. The government realized the need for medical transcription and its promotion resulted in the proliferation of such programs by institutions.
“We’re now promoting legal transcription because of its growing need,” the minister said, adding: “What we’re doing is to invest in manpower and faculty and not in building time-consuming and fund-draining buildings. Instead we’ve started acquiring existing campuses in various cities including Karachi and Lahore, and concentrating on upgrading research centers.”
He stressed that Pakistan had a 100 percent fiber optic cable network throughout the country and so the growth of Internet would be faster and cheaper. “The Indian prime minister announced on Aug. 15 last a 10-year program to spread Internet in the country, while Pakistan declared two days later that it would achieve it within five months. “Today, we’ve Internet available in 380 cities, towns and villages, as against 150 in India,” he remarked and explained the advantages and benefits of e-governance and e-banking.
He bemoaned that there had been only two Ph.Ds in the engineering sector since independence and hoped that his ministry’s policies, which had already been paying dividends, would help correct the situation. “Today it’s an IT wave, tomorrow it could be biotech,” he said adding, that he hoped to implement policies that would last at least five years, although his term would end within a year and a half.
Muhammad Saleem, consul commercial, offered a vote of thanks.
