Minister asks ICT companies to boost presence in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Minister of State for IT & Telecom Anusha Rahman Thursday met Azerbaijan’s Minister for IT Ali Mammad Oglu Abbasov and Iran’s Minister of Communication and Information Technology Mahmoud Vaezi on the sidelines of ITU Telecom World event in Budapest, Hungary.
In her meeting with Abbasov, it was agreed that both countries will enhance cooperation and collaboration in the fields of ICTs as well as research and development. Anusha also met with high-level delegations from Turkey, ITU, World Bank and Cisco Corporation.
In her meeting with the ITU delegation, the minister wowed for an increased and meaningful participation in the global telecommunications development activities and reaffirmed Pakistan’s interest to host the International Regulatory Roundtable in the coming year. She also urged the top management of Cisco to take advantage of the immense market opportunity and talent available in Pakistan and to boost their presence in the country.
The minister, while participating in the core expert panel at ITU Telecom World event titled ‘Opening up new markets in the converged ICT ecosystem: new users, new services or new segments’, said that “in the fast-changing telecoms landscape creation of new market segments is the most crucial area of policy focus.
She said that new segments broaden the base of the ICT industry and enable delivery of socially relevant innovative services to an expanding user base”. Citing the core focus of the Government of Pakistan in enabling new markets, the minister of state mentioned the priority for smart city, online transactions, e-commerce, e-banking, e-Health, e-government and other e-initiatives as drivers for new market segments in Pakistan.
Anusha also spoke at the Leadership Summit where the need for integrating regional markets was stressed and the importance of such market building for regional integration in general was highlighted.