Rs6bn allocated for establishment of IT park in Capital: Dar

ISLAMABAD: Delivering Budget speech in the National Assembly, Minister for Finance Muhammad Ishaq Dar Friday said that the Government of Pakistan realizing the importance of Information technology has taken a number of measures in past and will continue with similar measures in future.

He said that the Government will set up a IT software park in Islamabad with the help of Korean Government at a cost of Rs. 6 billion. The financial arrangements for this have been concluded and the construction work shall start soon, he added.

The minister said that the start-up software houses shall be exempted from Income Tax for the first 3 years while exports of IT services from Islamabad and other Federal territories shall be exempted from Sales Tax.

He said IT export houses/ companies shall be allowed to open Foreign Exchange Accounts in Pakistan on the condition that deposit in these accounts shall only be allowed through remittances from abroad in respect of their export earnings.

They will be allowed to use these accounts for meeting business related payments outside Pakistan,he added.

Dar said tat mobile phones being an important element in providing IT connectivity and the mobile telephony is heavily taxed.

He said it has been decided to provide a relief to common man by reducing the withholding income tax on cell phone call from 14pc to 12.5pc and Federal Excise Duty from 18.5pc to 17pc. We hope that in the same spirit the provincial government shall also reduce the rate of sales tax on mobile telephony and for encouraging use of smart / android phones

- custom duty shall be reduced from Rs. 1,000 to Rs. 650; and import duty is being reduced on mobile telecom products.