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Neo · 12-04-2005, 09:58 AM

Pakistan attractive place for investment: minister

ISLAMABAD (December 01 2005): The Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication Awais Ahmed Leghari has said that Pakistan is poised to become an even more attractive place for investment in telecom and IT sectors at the back of an accelerated economic and telecom growth.

In his welcome address at the inaugural session of 10th sitting of General Assembly of Asia and Pacific Region, the minister forecast that the tele-density in Pakistan would improve to about 30 percent by 2009-10, which means an addition of over 30 million more fixed and mobile telephones.

Terming telecom sector as "the fastest growing sector of economy", the minister said that Pakistan now is the second fastest growing telecom market in Asia after China. According to him, the boom in IT and telecom sectors was visible through easy availability of telecom products/services all over the country.

He said cellular mobile, wireless local loop and broadband sectors offered lot of opportunities for vendor and operators as the market had the potential to reach 50 million subscribers by 2009-10. "Fixed and mobile sectors attracted foreign and local investment/commitment of over 4 billion dollars in terms of licences and initial infrastructure. Next five years are likely to receive additional investment of over 3-4 billion dollars in the infrastructure deployment," he added.

He told the delegates that combined tele-density in last two years in Pakistan had more than doubled from 4.5 percent to over 15 percent of population. "Mobile sector has shown growth of over 100 percent in last two years while the total number of subscribers of fixed and mobile phone has increased from 8 million two years back to over 22 million (mobile 17 million, fixed 5.9 million) now.

The minister also predicted a massive increase in bandwidth usage through fixed and mobile sectors, which may increase from present 800 MB to over 6,000 MB. "In the same period with growing broadband penetration, we believe that third-party content business would gain enormous momentum," he said.

He said the rate of growth in the ICT sector had been tremendous, and Asia-Pacific region could be cited as a leading example in this regard. "Be it the proliferation of broadband, internet or the ever-increasing use of mobile services, the region has been a hub of activity of all ICT-enabled services, and is surely the fastest growing region in the world of ICT, for which APT deserves all the credit.

He said the government was committed to supporting the industry in all possible ways. "We will ensure delivery on all our commitments such as the continuity of policies, transparency of process, continued facilitation and a consultative approach."

Awais Leghari said appropriate infrastructure availability was one of the key areas to support the ever-increasing and expanding telecom services. "As part of its policies, the government is also aware of the redundancy requirements and alternate means to ensure that high-quality infrastructure is available for the provision of uninterrupted telecom operations and services," he said.

He told the conference delegates that Pakistan was already in the process of adding redundancy to its existing international connectivity through fibre optic cables as SEA ME WE 3 was so far the only optical fibre cable connecting Pakistan to the external world and was a single point of failure for country's international communication, vulnerable to both natural causes and clandestine activity.

He said PTCL was the only provider of national optical fibre backbone network in the country and there was a need to have back-up arrangements to meet the redundancy, diversity and resilience needs.

He said renowned multinational companies from various parts of the world had already selected Pakistan as a destination for investment in telecom sector. "I am quite hopeful that new LDI and mobile operators will become trend-setters for long distance domestic and international infrastructure segments, and would be introducing most innovative service solutions with quality par excellence.

He added that work had started on three domestic alternate backbones, which were coming from private sector, involving 15,000-Km fibre and investment of about 400 million dollars in maximum 18 months.

There has been tremendous improvement in the infrastructure deployment by various telecom sector operators. For instance, there has been an exponential increase in number of towers erected by telecom companies and at present almost 5,000 towers are in place. In the WLL sector, post-policy period has seen an increase of almost 700 towers, a figure that is expected to reach almost 2,100 by the end of the current financial year," he said and added that on the mobile sector front, there has been an increase of almost 3,300 towers during the post-policy period, and the number is expected to increase by another 2,800 towers by the end of this fiscal year. "Overall, the figure is expected to increase to over 9,000 at the end of current fiscal year," he said.

12-04-2005, 09:58 AM	#4 (permalink)
Neo Silent lurker *Senior Contributor* Join Date: 04-06-05 Location: Amsterdam Posts: 7,920 Country:	Telecom Pakistan attractive place for investment: minister ISLAMABAD (December 01 2005): The Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication Awais Ahmed Leghari has said that Pakistan is poised to become an even more attractive place for investment in telecom and IT sectors at the back of an accelerated economic and telecom growth. In his welcome address at the inaugural session of 10th sitting of General Assembly of Asia and Pacific Region, the minister forecast that the tele-density in Pakistan would improve to about 30 percent by 2009-10, which means an addition of over 30 million more fixed and mobile telephones. Terming telecom sector as "the fastest growing sector of economy", the minister said that Pakistan now is the second fastest growing telecom market in Asia after China. According to him, the boom in IT and telecom sectors was visible through easy availability of telecom products/services all over the country. He said cellular mobile, wireless local loop and broadband sectors offered lot of opportunities for vendor and operators as the market had the potential to reach 50 million subscribers by 2009-10. "Fixed and mobile sectors attracted foreign and local investment/commitment of over 4 billion dollars in terms of licences and initial infrastructure. Next five years are likely to receive additional investment of over 3-4 billion dollars in the infrastructure deployment," he added. He told the delegates that combined tele-density in last two years in Pakistan had more than doubled from 4.5 percent to over 15 percent of population. "Mobile sector has shown growth of over 100 percent in last two years while the total number of subscribers of fixed and mobile phone has increased from 8 million two years back to over 22 million (mobile 17 million, fixed 5.9 million) now. The minister also predicted a massive increase in bandwidth usage through fixed and mobile sectors, which may increase from present 800 MB to over 6,000 MB. "In the same period with growing broadband penetration, we believe that third-party content business would gain enormous momentum," he said. He said the rate of growth in the ICT sector had been tremendous, and Asia-Pacific region could be cited as a leading example in this regard. "Be it the proliferation of broadband, internet or the ever-increasing use of mobile services, the region has been a hub of activity of all ICT-enabled services, and is surely the fastest growing region in the world of ICT, for which APT deserves all the credit. He said the government was committed to supporting the industry in all possible ways. "We will ensure delivery on all our commitments such as the continuity of policies, transparency of process, continued facilitation and a consultative approach." Awais Leghari said appropriate infrastructure availability was one of the key areas to support the ever-increasing and expanding telecom services. "As part of its policies, the government is also aware of the redundancy requirements and alternate means to ensure that high-quality infrastructure is available for the provision of uninterrupted telecom operations and services," he said. He told the conference delegates that Pakistan was already in the process of adding redundancy to its existing international connectivity through fibre optic cables as SEA ME WE 3 was so far the only optical fibre cable connecting Pakistan to the external world and was a single point of failure for country's international communication, vulnerable to both natural causes and clandestine activity. He said PTCL was the only provider of national optical fibre backbone network in the country and there was a need to have back-up arrangements to meet the redundancy, diversity and resilience needs. He said renowned multinational companies from various parts of the world had already selected Pakistan as a destination for investment in telecom sector. "I am quite hopeful that new LDI and mobile operators will become trend-setters for long distance domestic and international infrastructure segments, and would be introducing most innovative service solutions with quality par excellence. He added that work had started on three domestic alternate backbones, which were coming from private sector, involving 15,000-Km fibre and investment of about 400 million dollars in maximum 18 months. There has been tremendous improvement in the infrastructure deployment by various telecom sector operators. For instance, there has been an exponential increase in number of towers erected by telecom companies and at present almost 5,000 towers are in place. In the WLL sector, post-policy period has seen an increase of almost 700 towers, a figure that is expected to reach almost 2,100 by the end of the current financial year," he said and added that on the mobile sector front, there has been an increase of almost 3,300 towers during the post-policy period, and the number is expected to increase by another 2,800 towers by the end of this fiscal year. "Overall, the figure is expected to increase to over 9,000 at the end of current fiscal year," he said. __________________ Administrator @ Defence.pk