Low ICT imports reflect slow growth of knowledge economy

KARACHI: Pakistan’s information and communication technology (ICT) imports share in the country’s total merchandise trade has been an average less than six percent for 10 years, indicating that the transfer of technology needed for knowledge-based economy is moving at a snail’s pace.

A latest statistics report issued on Friday by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) showed that Pakistan’s ICT goods imports accounted for a minuscule 4.59 percent of the total merchandise trade in 2014, the latest year for which figures are available.   

In 2004, this share stood at 4.82 percent, the data showed.

According to the UNCTAD’s chart, India’s ICT imports, albeit not significant, were the highest among all the South Asian economies, recorded at 6.31 percent. Nepal, with 4.74 percent, also fared well.

Global imports of ICT goods grew only one percent in 2014, the lowest rate of growth compared to the preceding five years, a statement said.

The worldwide imports of communications equipment and electronic components were the only two subsectors, which grew slightly in 2014 – up three percent and two percent, respectively – as compared to the previous year.

Imports of consumer electronics, meanwhile, continued a four-year decline, falling four percent in 2014, while computers and peripheral equipment imports were flat. As a result, imports of communication equipment matched those of computers and peripheral equipment, each with an estimated global value of $520 billion.

“Developing countries, and those countries changing from a centrally planned economy to a market economy, accounted for more than half (57 percent) of total global imports, which reached a value of $2.1 trillion,” the UN body added.

It said economies with the largest declines of ICT goods imports in 2014 included Ukraine (34 percent), Argentina (23pc), Paraguay (18pc), Belarus (18pc), Chile (17pc), Kazakhstan (15pc) and Hungary (13pc).

“In total, ICT goods accounted for 12 percent of world merchandise imports in 2014. This proportion ranged between 44 percent for Hong Kong, China, around 20 to 24 percent in China, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore and less than one percent in Afghanistan and Mauritania,” it added.

The data suggested that the share of Pakistan’s ICT exports in the total merchandise trade was 0.19 percent in 2014, less than India (0.97 percent) and Sri Lanka (0.62 percent).    

“The largest increases in ICT goods exports were noted for the Russian Federation (80 percent), the Philippines (40pc), Latvia (30pc), South Africa (25pc), Poland (21pc), Finland (13pc) and Australia (12pc),” the statement said.

The UNCTAD’s data showed that Pakistan’s ICT re-exports were somehow at a better position as they accounted for 13.18 percent of the total merchandise trade in 2014, and the figure noticeably edged up from 1.74 percent in 2004.