KARACHI, June 04 2006: The Minister of State for Information Technology and Telecommunication, Ishaq Khakwani, has announced that three IT towers would be established in three mega cities of the country. He said the IT towers would facilitate IT companies for rapid growth of their business and IT-related products, which would create more job opportunities in this sector.
Addressing the first Telecom Excellence Awards Ceremony held at a hotel, the minister said that due to the present government’s policies, rapid growth was witnessed in the IT and telecom sectors, attracting huge foreign investment.Khakwani lauded the PTCL’s efforts and hoped its new management would provide latest technologies to its customers in a much befitting manner.
The Chairman PTA, Shahzada Alam Malik, announced substantial reduction in tariff of broadband services in the next week which would make telecom services more affordable for the common man. He said the telecom watchdog would introduce the MNP (Mobile Number Portability) by October this year, adding that initial work had been completed in that regard.
He further said that during 2004-05, there was a foreign direct investment inflow of $494.4 million in the telecom sector, which was almost one-third of the total FDI in the country during the period. The trend continued and during the period from July 2005 to February 2006, $398 million FDI inflows came in the telecom sector, and by March 2006 this figure had crossed the $1 billion mark.
Saalim Ali Al-Akbari, Senior Executive Vice President (HR&A) of PTCL, said customer needs was the prime focus of the new PTCL management, the Etisalat International Pakistan. The State Minister, Ishaq Khakwani, later distributed telecom excellence awards and trophies among the heads and representatives of various IT and telecom companies for best performance while Ali Al-Akbari received the excellence awards on behalf of the PTCL and Etisalat.
Member Telecom Ministry of IT and Telecommunication Noor-ud-din Baqai, Chairman FPCCI Ch Saeed, Chief Executive Pakistan Export Group Tariq Saeed, and other top-level executives of different mobile and IT companies were also present.–APP
Source: Dawn
Date:6/3/2006
