Islamabad, MAY 16: /DNA/ – Ahsan Zafar Bakhtawari, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI), said that the government should formulate a more attractive and conducive mobile phone policy to encourage the local production of smartphones, as Pakistan can earn billions of dollars by increasing their exports. He said that the mobile phone manufacturing industry is currently the fifth largest industry in the world with an annual sales revenue of over 500 billion dollars, but Pakistan’s share in it is negligible, so there is a great need for the government to promote local production of smartphones by providing better incentives to the investors. He said this while expressing his views after inaugurating an outlet of Samsung mobile phones in the Centaurus Mall Islamabad.
Ahsan Zafar Bakhtavari said that China’s annual exports of mobile phones are more than 150 billion dollars and if the local production of smartphones in Pakistan is better encouraged, the country can earn billions of dollars from their exports. He said that currently about 30 companies are engaged in local assembling and manufacturing mobile phones in Pakistan and in 2022, more than 20 million mobile phones were assembled and manufactured in Pakistan, including many international brands like Samsung and Nokia. However, Pakistan is a big market for mobile phones because the number of mobile phone subscribers in our country is over 190 million. Therefore, the government should pay special attention to increase the local production of smart phones to precious forex reserves and make significant increase in exports.
Mian Akram Farid, former President ICCI, said that Pakistan is mostly dependent on textiles and few other products for exports, due to which our annual exports are still limited to 25 to 30 billion US dollars. He said that the time has come for the government to encourage the production of value-added products, including the mobile phones, so that instead of running the country in debt, Pakistan can emerge as a strong economy by rapidly increasing exports.
Sardar Yasir Ilyas Khan, former President ICCI demanded that the government should revise taxes on the telecom sector to attract more investment in this sector. He said that the imposition of high taxes on telecom services including the mobile calls is is a major hurdle in the better development of this industry.
Zafar Bakhtawari, Former President and Secretary General UBG, Khalid Chaudhry, Mian Arif Hussain and others were also present on this occasion.
