‘Govt encouraging local production of mobile phones’

Islamabad: Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication Syed Amin ul Haque has said that the government is encouraging the cellular companies to manufacture and assemble mobile phones in the country aimed at bringing down the increased prices of cell phones.

“We want that our people can buy a good quality mobile phone from Rs8,000 to Rs12, 000 instead of paying Rs50, 000 to Rs100, 000," he expressed these views while inaugurating the Software Technology Park at Hyderabad Institute of Arts, Science and Technology the other day, a news release said.

He said had previous governments planned the same much earlier, the prices of cell phones would have been low in addition to creation of more job opportunities in the country.

He also witnessed the signing ceremony of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) reached between Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) and Hyderabad Institute of Arts, Science and Technology (HIAST).

Terming the MoU a ''major achievement,'' he said it covered multifaceted cooperation in terms of establishing a software technology park at the university campus, capacity building, online training, developing linkages between academia and the industry besides facilitating the IT start ups and freelancers.

Currently, he said, as many as 16 software technology parks across the country with 1,169,500 square feet of space were offering state of the art facilities to the technology companies. He noted that the country’s IT industry had achieved significant expansion and growth in exports but it remained focused in Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore only.