KARACHI: President Karachi Chamber of Commerce & Industry (KCCI) Muffasar Atta Malik on Friday inaugurated two day ICT Gala 2018 being organized by Pakistan Computers Association (PCA).
Speaking at the ceremony KCCI president said that the IT sector of the country is fast growing and worlds almost industries are dependent on this sector. He said that every year 0.8 million desktop computers are imported while only 0.2 million are locally produced to meet the demand of one million desktops. “Now almost all the daily household activities and business management is merging with information technology. Therefore it has become increasingly important for Pakistan to promote this sector”, Malik added.
He called for giving IT sector status of industry and incentives for local production of IT related hardware so that dependence on the imports be minimized. “It is matter of concern that with virtually no domestic production, the country completely relies on the imports”, he noted adding “local companies died out because they could not compete with the ridiculously low prices at which imported e-waste were available in the market”
“I would like to mention that the Federal Board of Revenue granted the exemption in the budget 2016-17 to promote genuine imports and render informal and illegal imports as non competitive. However, the parts assembled inside the computers remained subject to 17 percent sales tax. Tax on the import of computer parts including hard drive CPU, monitor and other parts led to 20 percent rise in the prices of the locally assembled systems. Due to 17 percent tax exemption and 3 percent concession in value added tax imported computers and laptops have become 20 percent cheaper”, he noted.
PCA Chairman, Basharat Baloch highlighted IT vendors problems and gave suggested solutions. PCA Head of Exhibition, Mustafa Rawat spotlighted that Pakistan’s highly professionals seeks their future abroad as there is no potential platform provided for them.For this government will provide investment friendly policies then we can not only curtail our import but we can make sizeable export as well. Vice Chairman PCA Asif Vohra, Vice Chairman South, Syed Ata Ur Rehman Zaidi also spoke at that occasion.
