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ISLAMABAD (December 31 2005): The government is committed for the development of telecom sector through continuation of investor-friendly policies and Telenor is injecting resources in this sector through expansion of its network.

The introduction of subsidies to increase tele-density in under-served regions of the country through effective disbursement of fund could help in boosting the telecom sector, says a press release of a cellular company.

Telenor has officially opened its GSM mobile network for commercial service in 26 more destinations, including Dera Ghazi Khan, Dera Ismail Khan, Muzzafargarh, Swabi City, Adda Larr, Qiladidar Sing, Shakargarh, Narang Mandi, Alipur Chatha, Gujranwala-Alipur Chatta Road, Shujabad, Abdul Hakim, Kabirwala, Kabirwala-Shorkot Road, Lodhran, Multan-Bahawalpur Road, Nathiagali, Attock City, Attock Link Road, Kallar Sayedan, Bhurban, Bannu, Hangu, Laki Marwat, Tank and Tando Jam. This new addition has taken Telenor's total score to 200 destinations nation-wide.

__________________
Administrator @ Defence.pk

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DERA GHAZI KHAN (December 30 2005): Federal Minister for Telecommunications and Information Technology, Sardar Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari on Thursday said telephone and mobile phone connections were expected to rise up to 60 million from existing 20 million by the end of 2006.

Policies of the government brought a revolution in telecommunication sector opening new avenues of services and offering employment opportunities to millions of people, Awais Leghari said while addressing a ceremony to inaugurate Telenor service here.

"Number of telephone and mobile phone connections rose to 20 million from just two million within last few years and we are trying to catch the 60 million figure. We are pursuing such policies to practically implement the vision of President General Pervez Musharraf in telecommunication sector to make this facility available to each family and each town of Pakistan," he added.

The government was considering to install 1500 to 2000 new towers to expand the telecom services and funding would come from Rs 2 billion deposited by the companies as license fee, he informed.

Telenor Executive VP, Irfan Wahab Khan and regional director (sales) gave a briefing about the company's operations in the country in telecom service sector.

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ISLAMABAD (updated on: January 07, 2006, 12:38 PST): Etisalat of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is to pay Pakistan $1.4 billion up front under a revised $2.6 billion telecoms privatisation sale that will now be spread over five years, the government said.

The initial payment is part of a deal struck last month that rescued the stalled sale to Etisalat of a 26 percent stake in Pakistan Telecommunication Co. Ltd. (PTCL).

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KARACHI (January 07 2006): Foreign exchange reserves rose $326 million to $11.636 billion in the week ending December 31, the central bank said on Friday. Reserves held by the State Bank jumped to $9.223 billion from $8.867 billion a week earlier, but those held by commercial banks fell to $2.413 billion from $2.443 billion, according to the statement.

The bank did not give any reason for the increase.

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KARACHI: More than 500 employers of Malaysia are willing to recruit workers in different fields from the Pakistan.

Director General of Bureau of Emigration and Overseas Employment Muhammad Ibrahim disclosed this to The News in Karachi and said that the government was planning to utilise this opportunity by exporting the manpower to Malaysia.

The DG, who recently visited Malaysia to study the market for manpower, said that the atmosphere in Malaysia was very conducive and friendly and licenses have been issued to more than 197 promoters for exporting the manpower.

He said that the government plans to export 100,000 workers to Malaysia in 2006 and steps were being taken to meet this target. He said that Malaysia had opened this opportunity on the request of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz who was very much wiling to export the manpower to Malaysia to overcome unemployment problem.

The DG said that the purpose of his visit was to check the complaints but he found that these complaints were not correct as reported in the Pakistani media by some of the NGOs. He, however, said that the government would take action against the promoters if they were found involved in any irregularities or overcharging.

Muhammad Ibrahim, who also briefed the promoters at a meeting in Karachi, directed them not to charge more than Rs 60,000 as fixed for the expenditure per person seeking employment in Malaysia. He, however, assured the promoters that the government was considering to increase this amount from Rs 60,000 to Rs 85,000 to avoid overcharging.

He said that the Pakistani High Commission was also very much in contact with the Pakistanis living in Malaysia and trying to overcome their homesickness problem. He said that the arrangements were being made for establishing close contact among the Pakistanis so they could not feel alone, which, he termed, was a major problem confronting Pakistanis living in Malaysia.

He said there was no Pakistani in Malaysian jail and only 150 Pakistanis were in detention camp for overstaying or violating the law of the land. He, however, added that the Pakistani High Commission and the government were trying to get them released from the detention camp.

The DG said that under the law employers have powers to keep the passport of the employees in their custody till they work with them. But majority of the Pakistanis working in factories and petrol pumps were happy with their employers and employment condition, he said and added that no Malaysian employer complained about the behaviour of the Pakistani workers.

Muhammad Ibrahim further said that the government of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz had formulated a policy for exporting the manpower to Malaysia and directed the Bureau of Emigration and Overseas Employment to issue permits to recruiting agents to fulfill the requirements.

ìMalaysia is a new sector and the time is the best remedy to get the Pakistani workers properly adjusted,î he added. Earlier, a report had stated that few workers had totally refused to continue working in Malaysia due to homesickness and demanded immediate return to Pakistan.

Muhammad Ibrahim said that he has also directed the overseas employment promoters to satisfy the grievances of the workers with all possible ways and efforts were in progress for the resolution of the matter.

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CAA initiates $300m new Islamabad airport project

NIIA to have duty-free shops, hotels, air malls, business centre,

food courts and recreational facilities

By our correspondent

KARACHI: The first-ever green-field airport would be built in Islamabad at a cost of $300 million, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) announced on Friday.

Director General CAA, Air Marshal Pervez Akhtar Nawaz signed an agreement with a renowned international consultant - Louis Berger Group of USA - in association with Pakistani consulting firm ECIL, to undertake project management services.

The CAA is undertaking the development of the New Islamabad International Airport (NIIA) as part of the implementation of this prestigious project.

The contract signing ceremony was held at the CAA headquarters, Jinnah International Airport, Karachi.

The New Islamabad International Airport (NIIA) along with the new terminal building at Karachi and Lahore International Airports was part of CAA’s overall development programme.

However, due to financial commitments to the new terminal projects at Karachi and Lahore, along with other operational works, CAA could not launch this project earlier.

During last few years, CAA’s financial position has significantly improved and now it is able to undertake the mega project, the CAA spokesman said.

While the first contract for Project Management Services is signed, the CAA is close to receiving bids and proposals from international design consultants and signature architects for design of the new airport.

It is envisaged that the Design Consultants will commence their services by the end of March 2006. Soon after the mobilization of the Project Management Consultants, other processes for invitation of bids and award of construction contracts will be initiated. It is anticipated that the new facility will become operational by 2010.

The new airport site is located on 3,200 acres of land, acquired by CAA in 1980’s at Pind Ranjha near Fateh Jang, some 20km from Zero-Point, Islamabad and 23 km from Saddar, Rawalpindi involving driving time of only 20-25 minutes through network of motorways and highways.

The airport will be developed at par with international standards to serve as major hub for all aviation activities in the region.

Estimated to cost about $300 million, the new Airport facility, which is the first green-field airport in Pakistan, shall comprise a contemporary state-of-the-art passenger terminal building, control tower, runway with a provision of a secondary runway, taxiways, apron, cargo complex, and hangar together with all the necessary infrastructure and ancillary facilities. It would cater to the requirements of latest generation of modern passenger aircrafts. The new airport will have a modular design to handle 6.5 million passengers per annum and 100,000 metric tonnes cargo per annum.

Being a new airport, a significant portion of the land has been earmarked for commercial purposes such as duty-free shops, hotel and convention centre, air malls, business centre, food courts, leisure and recreational facilities.

The new airport is envisaged to be a modern landmark structure symbolic to represent twenty-first century Pakistan, as it will be the diplomatic and business gateway to Pakistan through the Capital City of Islamabad.

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LAHORE (January 08 2006): Minister of State and Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) chairman Tariq Ikram has said exports have registered an increase of 23 percent during the first five months of the current fiscal year as compared to the same period last year.

Talking to newsmen here on Saturday after presiding over 6th (video conference) meeting of the exhibition committee of Expo 2006 held at Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, he said exports of textile sector have increased by 20 percent while rice export have increased by 43 percent during the same period.

Similarly, he said leather garments exports have increased by 30 to 33 percent. However, he said some sectors like carpets and surgical instruments are not contributing to exports as per their potential, adding different schemes are being prepared to improve their performance.

Regarding carpets, he said a plan is at an advance stage for setting up carpet city, adding talks are in progress with the Sindh government for getting land for the project.

Asked about reasons for poor performance by the sector, he said, modern technology and trends would have to be adopted for improvement of the sector.

Stating that non-traditional items also registered around 20 percent increase during the same period, he said: "Pakistan has the potential to increase its exports substantially."

He said: "Our export products competitiveness can be increased to a great extent if different sectors increase their efficiency just by 10 percent while they have the potential to enhance their efficiency by 30 to 40 percent."

The EBP chairman said there are 13 to 20 sectors of our economy which can play important role in increasing exports to around $30 billion during next 10 years.

He said a strategy was being evolved to tape full potential of these sectors with special emphasis on development of supply chain of these sectors and close co-ordination among federal, provincial governments and the EPB.

To a question about increasing trade deficit, he said the best way to check is to increase exports as "we cannot reduce imports of petroleum and its products, heavy machinery and engineering goods, which account for the lion share of our total imports".

Regarding intra-regional trade, he said: "It offers only limited opportunities and would not help us to take leap jump in exports."

He was of the view removal of trade barrier including tariff and non-tariff under the WTO regime play a role in widening gap between imports and exports for countries like Pakistan, which have import-based economies.

Earlier, presiding over the 6th (video conference) meeting of the exhibition committee, the EPB chairman said arrangements for holding Expo-2006 are being given final touches to be participated by 1500 businessmen/buyers from all over the world.

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Jan 7: Pakistani stocks are expected to break the psychological 10,000 point barrier next week amid bullish sentiments, dealers said Friday.

But next week there will only be one trading day on Monday because of four holidays due to the Muslim festival of Eid-ul-Adha and the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca.

"The sentiments are bullish and the market is heading towards 10,000 levels and we expect it during the single-day trading the next week," said Mohammad Sohail, director at Jehangir Siddiqui Capital Market. Stocks plummeted last March from record highs of 10,304.72 points and hundreds of Pakistanis subsequently rioted at the Karachi Stock Exchange.

"This time the new high levels seem to be sustainable," Sohail said.

For the week ended January 6 the benchmark Karachi Stock Exchange - KSE - index of 100 shares rose by 329.69 points or 3.45 per cent to close at 9886.30 points.

Average daily volume for the past week was 379.02 shares valued at 40 billion rupees or 671.83 million dollars compared to 211.90 millions share worth 18.89 billion previous week.

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KARACHI, Jan 7: Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan on Saturday said that the generalized system of preferences was operative now and all exportable items to Europe would attract 3.5 points less duty, whereas duty on textile and apparel would be subjected to a reduction of 20 points.

Addressing members of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry and later talking to reporters, he said the reduced tariff would be operative till 2008. He also deliberated upon the achievements in regard to the WTO, Doha talks, Safta and FTA.

He said Safta’s committee of experts had met six times and discussed the technical assistance to the least developed countries (LDC) that had already come into force, whereas the rest of sections would be operative by June this year. Responding to a query pertaining to the measures taken by India in this regard, the commerce minister said the cut-off date for India would be July this year and the Indian side on the subject had so far taken no step.

He showed keen interest in starting negotiations with Bangladesh on free trade agreement, saying that Pakistan was keen to increase bilateral trade and extend concessions for the mutual benefit of the two countries. “We don’t want to hurt the interests of Bangladesh,” he asserted.

Talking about the recent Hong Kong round of WTO, he said that Pakistan took stance that increased accessibility to the LDC should not be done at the expense of developing countries. The developed nations, which agreed to increase the present 97 per cent accessibility to 100 per cent this year, should do at their own expense, by compensating the affected developing countries.

Mr Khan said that Pakistan had asked the rich countries to lower subsidies on agricultural products. He maintained that the European Union would eliminate most of the farm subsidies by 2010, but absolute end to the subsidies would be done in 2013. However, he said the subsidy on cotton would go in 2006.

About exports to the US, the commerce minister said that Pakistani goods attract 10.5 per cent duties in America whereas it had reduced the duty for developed nations. However, he said the duty hopefully would drastically be brought down after the Doha round.

Reiterating that national industrial parks would be set up throughout the country, the minister said that country’s exports by the fiscal year 2008 would reach $25 billion. He said the export target of $17 billion for this year required a growth of 18 per cent whereas during the first five months, exports registered a growth of 22.9 per cent, indicating that the export target would be surpassed this year too.

About the man-made fibre, Mr Khan said that due to high fuel prices in the international market, desired level of growth could not be acquired in Pakistan but, he hoped it would attract huge investment and growth in the coming years, bringing it cheaper than the natural fibre.

Responding to a question regarding the diminishing margins in knitwear and hosiery, he said the sector was becoming low margin and high volume business in the world. “There are companies in Pakistan, which were doing well under the changed scenario and the rest of the lot have to focus on high volume strategy to survive in the highly competitive world.”

Mr Khan said the ministry of textile industry had moved a proposal to set up a network of laboratories, their accreditation with the world bodies, besides encouraging research and development of contamination-free cotton.

When asked about the lowering of the cost of doing business, he said the recent increase in gas prices was necessitated to attract oil and gas exploration companies, as its prices as per the agreement had to be pinned with international oil prices.

However, he said that Pakistan enjoyed several other competitive advantages compared to its competitors like Bangladesh, which they lack and would help neutralize the impact of hike in such inputs

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Information Technology (IT) and telecommunication have witnessed a boom in Pakistan in 2005. IT is the current choice of many developing and developed countries to upgrade their online systems to compete in the global market as E-commerce has found a strong foothold in the world and enhanced the productivity.

Revolutionary advances in IT reinforce economic and social changes faced by the business community. From this revolution emerges a new kind of economy in which IT information is a critical resource and the base for competition. Old ways of doing business will be challenged and sometimes defeated. Government intervention to harness the growth of IT for national development is necessary on several fronts as a policy maker and major user. Also, governments must supervise and coordinate IT education - the key to human and economic development.

In year 2005, Cyber crime wing of the government of Pakistan was established and it approved a broad-band policy. Final draft of Electronic Crime Act 2004 is ready for approval. Of a total of 500 IT companies working in the country, 100 are ISO certified and 45 universities offering IT/CS programmes in Pakistan produced 6,500 IT graduates in year 2005. Total 207 ISP’s are working, catering to the needs of 10 million internet users and its shows a good future of IT in Pakistan. The internet was spread from 530 cities in 2001-02 to over 2000 cities in 2005 as well as Internet users are rapidly increasing. According to estimates, the total number of Internet users in Pakistan has been grown about 3 million.

In year 2005, most of the funds allocated for the E-governance, targeted

HRD and software development programmes. During financial year 2004-05,

Information technology and Telecom Division has been provided with a Development Budget of Rs. 1.516 billion. During the year under review, IT and Telecom Division has approved 31 new IT projects worth Rs. 2.26 billion under various categories including Governance, HRD and Software Industry Development. Interior Division was also allocated Rs.156.00 million for IT Projects.

IT Policy lays maximum emphasis on Human Resource Development (HRD) in the country in general and in the government institutions in particular. In the year 2004-05, IT and Telecom Division started six new projects at a total cost of Rs. 239.629 million to improve HRD sector. The major projects include establishment of Data Processing Center at Balochistan Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BBISE), IT Human Resource Support to Ministries/Departments, Revamping of existing technologies and Provision of Computer technology in Polytechnics of Balochistan and AJK, Introduction of Computer Education in 81 F.G/Model Colleges and Schools in ICT, Islamabad.

At present, over 900 IT companies have been established generating approximately $ 32.88 million revenue. Pakistan Software Export Board is responsible for the development and promotion of Pakistan’s software industry. At present, 78 international and 29 domestic call centres, having 2,500 seats, have been established. Moreover six IT parks have already been established in the country in public and private sector.

Electronic Government Directorate (EGD), established in October 2002, to promote IT culture in the country, has initiated a number of projects. These projects aim at the automation of the functions of the Federal Government and provision of services to citizens. During this year, the EGD has approved 11 new projects of Rs 1.1 billion. Establishment of Federal Government Data Center is the most significant initiative of the Directorate. This Data Center will interconnect all the Ministries of the Federal Government and will also work as ‘Central Repository’ for all applications and databases of the Federal Government.

Other important projects include computerisation of the Ministry of Food,

Agriculture and Livestock, Capital Development Authority, Islamabad Capital Territory Administration and Islamabad Capital Police. Projects for the Online Processing of Hajj Applications and submission of online return by companies to Security and Exchange Commission of Pakistan have also been started during this year.

The major on-going projects include E-Enabling of National Assembly, E-Enabling of Senate, Automation of Ministry of IT, Recruitment System for FPSC, Lexicon, Machine Translation and Text Speech Software for Urdu, Access to Statutory and Case Laws at District Bar Associations, Tech Support to Provincial IT Departments.

The other important projects of the E-government programme, being executed by the other agencies, are computerisation/automation of Export Promotion Bureau,

Monopoly Control Authority, Pakistan Medical Research Council, Project Management System for Development Funds at NWFP, Finance and Planning Dept of NWFP, Sindh Government Departments and Automation City District Government, Karachi. During this year, four different projects pertaining to E-government initiatives are going to be completed at a total cost of Rs.67.00 million. These projects include Computerization of Arm Licenses, Computerization of Registration deeds, Sialkot Model IT City and Computerization of PM Secretariat (Phase-I).

The most important development is the creation of National E-government

Council in October 2004. The prime minister is the chairman of the council to provide leadership to the E-government initiatives of the Ministry of Information Technology.

In the year 2004-05, the government funded five on-going IT industry projects worth Rs. 155.54 million to improve E-services for citizens. The major projects include Industrial Automation (Open Source Systems), Geographical Information System (GIS) to facilitate Mineral Exploration in NWFP, Industrial Information Network (IIN) for SME’s Development in Pakistan, Domestic Exhibitions 6.180.

The other major on-going projects are Development of Open Source Resource Center, Establishment of STPs in Private Sector. To compete with the growing economies of the world, Pakistan needs to educate, train and bring its workforce to the international educational standards, incorporate new technologies and modern management practices into its industry, and bring intense focus on building an information-based economy by upgrading the technical and managerial skills of its people.

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ISLAMABAD, Jan 09 : The government is focusing on accelerating the economic growth through enhancing productivity under five year Medium Term Development Programme.

Official sources say under the programme, over three hundred thirty two billion rupees will be invested for the development of knowledge based economy.

They said major investments would be made in education, training, research and development, promotion of science and technology and information and communication technologies to provide the tool and medium for this transformation.

The sources said one hundred thirty five billion rupees would be spend on the improvement of higher education with particular focus on increasing enrolment at the higher level from four to eight percent and fifty two billion rupees would be spent on the development of science and technology sectors.

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ISLAMABAD (January 11 2006): High operation losses of power sector are consuming more than 1.4 percent of the nation's GDP, which is equal to 75 percent of education budget and 200 percent of health budget, it is learnt.

Poor services and high corruption, high tariffs and low reliability hurt industrial competitiveness and all these hurdles have to be checked for sustaining the growth, an official of the Ministry of Water and Water told Business Recorder on Tuesday.

In Pakistan, only half of the population has access to electricity. With the normal demand-growth rate, the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) will face acute power shortage of 500 megawatts (MW) in 2005-06 and a further 5,529 megawatts shortfall by 2010. The shortage of electricity is expected to be approximately 1,000 megawatts per year from 2005 onward, he added.

Based on the existing growth rate of power demand there will be a gap of 1,300 megawatts by 2007.

Hydel power potential in the country is approximately 41,722 megawatts. However, hydel projects are still untapped due to political disputes and shortage of funds. The share of hydel power has continuously declined, like the other power sources.

The share of hydel power was almost 52 percent in 1992-93, which declined to 35 percent in 2002-03. In 1960, the share of hydel power was high at 70 percent and of thermal power was 30 percent.

Like other countries, Pakistan would grow solar, wind and geothermal energy as early as possible to maintain this robust growth, as the use of coal and oil would fall by 73 percent and 20 percent, respectively, during the next 25 years, he said.

Chairing a recent meeting on power generation capacity addition on fast track basis, the Prime Minister curtailed the powers of Private Power Infrastructure Board (PPIB) to allow setting up of new thermal power projects without the approval of the federal government.

The meeting decided the four projects, with cumulative power generation capacity of 540 megawatts, would commence commercial operation by June 30, 2008.

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MUMBAI (January 11 2006): Pakistan's economy is growing at a very fast pace, and the number of Oracle licences is increasing. This was stated here on Tuesday by Geographies Oracle Corporation, Asia Pacific Division Senior Vice President Keith Budge at a press briefing in connection with the two-day (January 10 and 11) India's mega event of 'Oracle Open World'.

The briefing was also attended by Oracle President Charles Phillips, who had flown in from California a day earlier. Also accompanying him were Executive Vice President, Oracle Asia Pacific, Derek Williams, and Managing Director, Oracle India, Krishan Dhawan.

Budge said: "The (Pakistan) economy is not only performing well, but even higher than Philippines economy." "It's actually a high growth market," he added.

At the press briefing, Oracle's President Charles Phillips announced that the company was ramping up the expansion of its operations in India, which currently employs more than 8,600 people across six cities, supporting local, regional and global company initiatives.

In the past five years, Oracle invested nearly $2 billion in India to support company initiatives, such as its development centres, in-kind education donations, investments in companies like i-flex, and commitment to employees.

Under the new expansion plans, Oracle is scheduled to increase its presence in nine non-metro cities, including Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Coimbatore, Indore, Jaipur, Kochi, Lucknow, Pune and Vishakhapatnam.

Oracle expects to increase its total headcount in India to 10,000 over the next eight months.

"We have been in India for more than 19 years, and the infrastructure we have put in place now enables us to go beyond the metro cities and into the cities that are the up-and-coming economic engines of India," said Charles.

"The fast rate of development, high literacy rates, and availability of IT skills in each of these cities represent an untapped reservoir of future economic wealth for India. We want to help make that happen."

Oracle first entered India in 1987 through distributorship with a partner. After setting up its first liaison office in 1991, Oracle was one of the first software companies to establish 'India Development Centre' (IDC) in 1994. The IDC is Oracle's largest research and development centre outside the United States and carries out cutting-edge development work across the entire Oracle product family for the global market.

Oracle has more than 6,000 database and middleware customers and 400 application customers in India.

Oracle also plans to increase its partner network to support its reach across all 15 cities and industry segments, especially within the small and medium-sized enterprise market.

Oracle currently has 275 partners in India, adding 75 in 2005. Almost 80 percent of Oracle's licence revenue in India is generated through partners.

Oracle plans to increase its headcount in India to more than 10,000 over the next eight months. These additional resources will be in the areas of sales and marketing, product development, consulting, product support and services. Oracle in India employs 17 percent of Oracle's total world-wide staff of 51,000.

"India is one of the two fastest growing markets for Oracle in the Asia-Pacific region," said Oracle Asia Pacific Executive Vice President Derek Williams. "With the present expansion plans, we hope to grow the market reach for Oracle exponentially and accelerate Oracle's growth in India," he added.

According to analyst firm IDC, information technology (IT) spending among Indian organisations was projected to reach over $9 billion by the end of 2005, and over $17 billion by the end of 2009.

"While India continues to be a large global product development and services centre for Oracle, it is maturing as a market for adoption of the latest technology and applications products," said Oracle India Managing Director Krishan Dhawan.

"We are the undisputed leader in the database space. We are growing rapidly in middleware applications and have leadership in key industry segments including Government, FSI and Telecom industries," he added.

Oracle has the most comprehensive menu of products and services for organisations of all sizes, needs, and requirements.

Oracle offers four database versions, which range from its free version Oracle Database 10g Express Edition, all the way up to its enterprise edition, Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition.

Its database software supports 13 Indian languages. Its applications offerings give customers an unequalled level of choice in the market and include the Oracle E-Business Suite, JD Edwards, and PeopleSoft product lines.

"The non-metro cities in India will have an unprecedented level of choice in enterprise software, which is critical to its emerging companies," Dhawan added.

"We are already working with companies in the non-metro cities, but now feel it necessary to provide them on-the-ground support from Oracle and its partners. We strongly believe these emerging companies will form the backbone of India's future economic growth and as such will need world-class support and services to manage their business and IT infrastructure," he said.

"Oracle's Lifetime Support Policy is an example of how customers not only have the best products to run their business, they also enjoy unrivalled product support and rights to future releases to evolve their systems and stay competitive in this dynamic marketplace," Dhawan added.

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Karachi, Pakistan, January 10, 2006--Pakistan carpet exports are set to gain momentum on back of international carpet exhibition being held in Germany from January 15-18, according to Asia Pulse.



Pakistan Carpet Manufacturers & Exporters Association chairman Abdul Ghafoor Sajid said fresh orders of Pakistani carpets were expected after the exhibition. Talking to PPI via telephone, he said PCMEA was optimistic about achieving export target of $235 million for financial year 2005-06."Demand for Pakistani carpet had increased as compared to Afghani counterparts," he added.

Referring to Export Promotion Bureau chairman Tariq Ikram's apprehension about a drop in carpet exports, he said exports were doing fine prior to December last, when due to Christmas and subsequent holidays in Europe slightly affected exports. PCMEA had originally set eyes on export target of $240 million in FY 2005-6 as compared with exports of $232 million in last fiscal year.

"This (financial) year's target is not insubstantial. Nor Indian or Chinese carpets have an edge over Pakistani products," he said, adding that handicraft differ from place to place and each design has its own market.

However, he said the business needed to be upgraded from a cottage industry."Programming goods culture, requiring manufacturers to produce exactly in line with orders, is in demand," he explained. He said this also ensures customer satisfaction and for the purpose industry needed a place to regroup and organize. A proposal for 50-acre land in Korangi was pending with relevant authorities. Hopefully, a decision in this regard would be made shortly, he added.

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ISLAMABAD (January 08 2006): Telenor Pakistan took another step ahead in providing value-added services to its customers by signing Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) Interconnect Agreement with Mobilink.

This would enable the subscribers of both operators to exchange MMS or multimedia messages with zero interconnect charges. With this new agreement, the Telenor customers have become the only to exchange MMS with three networks; Mobilink, Ufone and Warid without paying any interconnect charges. Tore Johnsen, CEO Telenor Pakistan termed the agreement a milestone and said that it was yet another indication of the growing maturity of the market and the industry.

Just last month Telenor had launched MMS services with Ufone and Warid on the principle of zero interconnect charges.

Johnson further added, "we are intent at making it easy for our customers to use advanced services and utilise the real potential of the available technology and the quality of network".

Speaking positively about Telenor`s prospects in the local market and the customer response, Tore said, "we are on the path of fast growth, and have already delivered on our promise of reaching 200 destinations, to which customers have responded with great enthusiasm. We want to be the preferred operator for the Pakistani customer and are ensuring that we deliver the most reliable connectivity, the most valuable innovations, transparency in billing, and the highest quality of customer services".-PR