The Engineering Development Board (EDB) has called authorised mobile phone manufacturers on November 10 for preliminary discussions to prepare the new policy on mobile devices and allied equipment manufacturing, read an EDB letter on Tuesday.
The board has sought the meeting after the Mobile Device Manufacturing Policy 2020-23 (MDMP 2020-23) expired this year. Introduced by the then Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)-led government, the policy managed to attract 31 mobile companies to Pakistan.
“The current and proposed tariff of local manufacturing of mobile devices and selection of items and preparation of tariff structure for allied equipment such as POS machines, tablets etc for promotion of eco-system will be analysed,” stated the letter sent to authorised mobile phone manufacturers.
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Discussions would also be held on the localisation plan under the proposed policy, it added.
According to the letter, analysis of list of importable components for inclusion or exclusion from quota allotted to manufacturers and the list of importable components with respect to minimum number of parts and components will also be finalised.
Source of funding, collection and disbursement mechanism for research and development allowance and export subsidy; feasibility of 3% or 8% as has been proposed, to be reviewed.
Other than that, ease of doing business, reduction of regulatory burden on industry, timelines for completion, and approval of policy documents will also be determined.
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The meeting will be held under the chairmanship of CEO EDB, which works under the Ministry of Industries and Production. The CEO can also allow any other item for discussion.
EDB has initially invited only authorisation holders for mobile phone manufacturing, saying the board would hold meetings with other stakeholders at appropriate time after preparation of the preliminary report.
It has previously been reported by Business Recorder that the MDMP 2020-23 enabled local mobile manufacturing and assembling, which has generated around $300 million in investment and 50,000 employment during the last two years i.e. since January 2021.
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The companies included renowned brands such as Xaomi, Samsung, Nokia, Oppo, TECNO, Infinix, Vgotel, and Q-mobile etc.
Local manufacturing plants manufactured/assembled 21.94 million phones 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 the letters of credit (LC).
Meanwhile, the commercially imported phones handsets stood 1.53 million in 2022, significantly lower than 10.26 million in 2021, and 24.51 million in 2020.