Local manufacturing of cellular phones to reduce import: minister

ISLAMABAD: Caretaker Federal Minister for IT and Telecommunication, and Science and Technology, Dr Umar Saif has said that the government wants to decrease mobile phones’ import through cheap and quality mobile phones’ manufacturing in Pakistan.

The Ministry of IT and Telecommunication is committed to promote the IT and telecom sector of Pakistan, said the minister, adding that Pakistan is the seventh major mobile phone market of the world, adding that 190 million mobile phones are in use in Pakistan. We want to decrease mobile phones import by cheap and quality mobile phones manufacturing in Pakistan, he maintained.

Dr Saif said that manufacturing of cellular phones locally will not only create job opportunities but also help promote the hi-tech industry in Pakistan.

Local manufacturing plants have manufactured/assembled 6.07 million mobile handsets during the first five months (January-June) of 2023 compared to 0.53 million imported commercially.

The official data suggested that local manufacturing plants have manufactured/assembled 1.19 million mobile handsets during June 2023 compared to 0.12 million imported commercially.

Local manufacturing plants manufactured/assembled 21.94 million mobile handsets during the calendar year 2022 compared to 24.66 million in 2021, i.e. registered a decline, attributable to issues in imports on account of restricting the opening of Letters of Credit (LCs).

Around 21.94 million mobile handsets were assembled during the calendar year 2022, compared to 1.53 million commercially imported phones handsets, said the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).

The locally manufactured/assembled 6.07 million mobile phone handsets included 4.77 million 2G and 1.3 million smartphones.

Besides, as per the PTA data, 56 percent of mobile devices are smartphones, and 44 percent are 2G on the Pakistan network.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023