Korean Exim Bank VP due next week

The vice president of Korean Exim Bank is arriving Pakistan next week to sign a loan agreement of around $50 million for establishment of the first state-of-the-art software technology park. The construction of the park on 45 acres of land at Chak Shahzad, Islamabad, will be started after the agreement, said Minister of State for Information Technology and Telecom Anusha Rahman while addressing Excellence Award ceremony organised by National Telecommunication Corporation (NTC) in recognition of services and outstanding achievements of its officials.
The minister unexpectedly highlighted negative points of NTC while saying that officials of the Corporation are found pulling one another's leg during the last three years. It would have been better if NTC employees adopt positive approach, she added. The minister further questioned NTC survey, which reported that 97 percent consumers were satisfied with its performance; however, this percentage was 73 in accordance with the ministry's survey.
The minister further said that Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Board has passed resolution on Internet Registry (Pakistan), through which local community of Pakistan will now be able to register and use internet domains in Pakistan's native languages and scripts. This is an important milestone to proliferate the digitalisation in Pakistan through local content. Through this resolution, the NTC will be the manager for internet registry.
By launching ccTLD internet accessibility for Urdu language users will be revolutionised as IDNs in native language will make internet navigation much easier. It will help local citizen's access web addresses using Urdu language. She said that due to collective approach, first state-of-the-art "National Incubation Centre" has successfully been established which has started nurturing the start-up/young entrepreneurs while four more such incubation centres in all provincial capitals are also in the offing. Moreover, three specialised Incubation centres for Internet of Things (IoT), Robotics and Fin-Tech are also being established.
She further stated that IT Ministry is going to establish computer labs in 107 rural girls schools of Islamabad capital territory where young girls will be able to learn latest technical/computing skills from their early childhood and the USF is committed to completing this project by the end of summer this year.
Anusha Rahman said that Kohistan Lot would be announced by next week, where people of these areas will not only be provided with the fibre optic but availability of 3G services will also be ensured by the end of 2018. Managing Director NTC, Brigadier Viqar Rashid Khan (retd) said that Excellence Awards are designed to recognise members of NTC family whose initiatives and efforts contributed towards the achievement of NTC's business results and overall success.
The MD NTC shared that NTC has made significant progress in providing the state-of-the-art telecom/ICT services in public sector. Due to continuous efforts of the management and NTC employees, the corporation after three years has now become profitable entity, achieved a financial turnaround and become a beacon of light for other public sector corporations.
The MD briefed the audience that NTC is the first operator to establish the Cloud Based Tier-III National Data Centre in the public sector. During the last three years, the NTC has carried out massive technical growth to extend latest telecom/ICT services to its valued customers.
During current fiscal year 2016-17, the NTC is going to complete 100 per cent of its ADP projects in time which will be a record in public sector, while its profit would grow by 278 percent. The NTC has extended its services from 54 districts/cities to 87 districts/cities. Overall fixed lines telephone growth observed was 6 per cent despite a decline in its general use with growth of over 36 percent in broadband. The NTC is the first telecom operator in Pakistan which has recently introduced "NTC Go Smart App" machine to machine (M2M) and point 2 point (P2P) technologies under public private partnership.