Pakistan ranks 143rd in world’s ICT development

KARACHI: A United Nations (UN) body ranked Pakistan 143rd amongst the nations who are developing their information and communication technology sectors.
The country’s rank decreased to this level from 138 in 2010, said the "Measuring the Information Society Report 2015", released on Monday by the Information and Telecommunication Union (ITU).
Pakistan, however, is among the countries, “that have experienced an average improvement of 0.72 in their IDI (ICT Development Index) values over the period 2010-2015,” the report said.
These countries included India, Indonesia and Bangladesh as well as small island states, such as Samoa, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands.
The UN specialised agency gauged 11 indicators under ICT access, use and skills to develop the index.
Comparing Asian countries, the report showed that Pakistan ranked 30 among the 32 nations, only a little above Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
The Geneva, Switzerland-based ITU said the sharpest rise in the rankings within Asian group of countries came from Bhutan (up nine places) and Myanmar (up eight places), while significant falls were recorded by Vietnam (down eight places), India (down six places) and Pakistan (down five places)
Prices of fixed broadband, however, are decreasing in Pakistan, showed the report’s data analysing ICT developments over the past five years.
The report showed the South Asian nation lies somewhere in the mid of countries with lowest prices of fixed broadband as a percentage of gross national income and the nations with the highest rates.
“Prices have become relatively affordable and lie below five percent of GNI pc (gross national income per capita) in about half the countries in the region, including Indonesia, China, Thailand and Pakistan,” it said.
Having assessed the 2014 mobile broadband prices, the report said, “the cost of a prepaid handset-based mobile-broadband plan with a 500
MB (megabytes) monthly data allowance ranged from less than $2 in Pakistan and Bhutan to more than $40 in several countries, including Denmark, Cyprus, Israel and the United States.”
The report said pre-paid handset-based mobile broadband for 500 MB/month are below five percent.
The country’s ranking was 59 in the world when it comes to the prices of pre-paid handset-based mobile broadband.
However, it scored 115th rank in terms of post-paid mobile broadband prices.
“ICTs will be essential in meeting each and every one of the 17 newly-agreed sustainable development goals,” said ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao, in a statement. “And this report plays an important role in the SDG process. Without measurement and reporting, we cannot track the progress being made…”