As the policy to promote local production of the device has already been approved by the Cabinet Economic Coordination Committee (ECC), Pakistan will soon start assembling mobile phone handsets.
Under the scheme, tax rates were increased for high-end mobile devices, while tax rates for low-end handsets were either lowered or withdrawn.
IT exports have risen 40 percent in the last six months, according to an official from the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunications. For 2020-23, the inflow target for export remittances was US $5 billion.
He said IT was rising faster, earning valuable foreign exchanges, creating high-paying jobs, improving national competitiveness and quality of life through innovative technology solutions.
This could be derived from the fact that IT & IT permitted services (ITeS) export remittances consisting of computer services and call center services rose to US $1.
The number of PSEB registered IT & ITeS companies was 2,746 as of 30 November 2020, compared to 2,121 valid registrations as of November 2019. North America, the UAE and the UK are currently the main markets for Pakistan’s IT industry, he said.
He said the IT industry in Pakistan has exported goods and services to more than 100 countries and the world’s largest businesses are among its regular customers. It was the largest net service export sector of Pakistan’s economy, he said.
He said Pakistan’s IT sector had the bandwidth to provide state-of-the-art IT products and services and thus had the capacity to substantially increase Pakistan’s much-needed foreign exchange earnings.
