Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI) Sardar Yasir Ilyas Khan has called upon the government to focus on the computer industry that has tremendous potential to boost the country’s exports and create plenty of new jobs.
He said this while addressing a delegation of Pakistan Computer Association Islamabad Chapter that visited ICCI led by Munawar Iqbal founder member of PCA and Ibrar ul Haq President. Mr Abdullah Malik, Mr Jamal Yousaf, Mr Arshd Janjua, Mr Abdul Rehman and others were in the delegation. Sardar Yasir Ilyas Khan said that the computer industry could bring billions of dollars to the country through exports, but lack of a supportive ecosystem was a major hurdle in its growth. He said that computer and IT exports of our immediate neighbour were over USD100 billion, but Pakistan’s share in the global market of computer services exports was very low, at around 0.2 percent.
He said that lack of recognized international payment gateways such as PayPal was a major hurdle in the growth of e-commerce segment business and stressed that the government should arrange internationally recognized payment gateways in Pakistan that would boost the exports of this industry.
He further said that the government should ease tax regulations to encourage investment in the computer industry.
The ICCI President emphasized that the government should establish a technology park in Islamabad that would promote businesses of the computer and IT industry and make a significant increase in exports. He said that during Covid-19 pandemic, e-commerce businesses in Pakistan had experienced better growth and urged that the government should implement e-commerce policy in true letter and spirit to promote e-commerce in the country. He assured that ICCI would cooperate with Pakistan Computer Association for resolving the key issues of their industry.
Speaking at the occasion, Munawar Iqbal Chairman and Ibrar ul Haq President, Pakistan Computer Association (PCA) highlighted the key issues of their industry. They said that banks in Pakistan were not providing soft loans to computer sector start-ups due to which they were facing problems in launching new businesses. They said that due to Covid-19 pandemic, import of computer industry raw materials has declined by 50 percent and stressed that the government should make supportive policies for this industry to strengthen it. They said that thousands of tech graduates were entering the job market every year in Pakistan and facilitating the growth of the computer and IT industry would help in creating more jobs for them and fostering entrepreneurs. They said that the government should create a venture capital fund for the entrepreneurs of the computer field that would accelerate the growth of this industry and bring multiple benefits to the economy. They said that after the Covid-19, when dependency has increased on online education, government should promote digital access by offering exemptions on computer and laptops so that the students from low income groups could get benefitted.
