The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has urged the Government to make changes in the mobile phone manufacturing policy and include newer sectors. PTA suggests that making these changes will allow the production of many other devices such as laptops and tablets thus increasing job opportunities, increasing foreign exchange and reducing Pakistan’s import bill.
The current mobile manufacturing policy only favors the production of mobile phones and provides incentives limited to the mobile manufacturers. PTA says that the current policy does not favor the production of many other tech products such as laptops, tablets, signal boosters, vehicle trackers, biometric machines, point-of-sales machines, dongles, RFID etc.
Pakistan currently imports a lot of these above mentioned devices, once local production is kicked off the country will take its first step towards self-fulfillment, increase exports, and even boost the local IT industry by lowering equipment costs.
PTA says that “the existing mobile manufacturing policy does not offer any competitive incentive for the export of locally manufactured mobile devices. This also needs to be reviewed, whereby export incentives should be enhanced which can help export of locally manufactured mobile devices to the Middle East, Central Asia and African region.”
According to the PTA, it’s high time for the Government of Pakistan to move towards localization and make the necessary changes in Pakistan’s mobile phone manufacturing policy. Alongside the government, the Engineering Development Board should also take the necessary steps for ensuring localization.
Local technology manufacturing requires a firm R&D, therefore PTA has requested the local academia to focus on this sector. A strong R&D will allow the tech manufacturers to implement newer technologies and increase exports.
Apart from all of this, PTA also urged the government to resolve LC’s for mobile manufacturers since they are unable to import raw materials for production.