Photo: IT Ministry
Islamabad: The federal government has decided to build 5000 freelancing centers in the country.
Caretaker Federal Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication Dr. Umar Saif says that the federal government will start a project to establish 5000 freelancing centers in the country at a cost of fifty billion rupees. To facilitate IT freelancers, interest free loan scheme is going to be launched. A fund of 100 million dollars will be created for startups with the support of international companies, for which the government will provide 3 billion dollars.
He said that talks are going on with PayPal to facilitate the inflow of dollars in Pakistan. The regulatory framework in the country is a major barrier to PayPal’s entry. The rules of the FATF international organizations are also an obstacle in this regard. The establishment of e-employment centers for freelancers in the country will bring five to six billion dollars to Pakistan annually.
He said that it has been decided to make apprenticeship program mandatory for IT graduates in IT universities. Apart from this, centralized test is also being made mandatory for awarding degrees to graduates. The award of the degree will be subject to passing this test. It has also been decided to introduce international certification courses for Pakistani students.
Dr. Umar Saif said that the Ministry of Information Technology has allocated funds of ten billion rupees for the promotion of the IT sector, in which one billion rupees has been provided to Nautik while one billion rupees is for the Higher Education Commission. Under the project, 100,000 IT students will receive international IT professional certification and 16,000 people will be trained in the first year.
He said that our IT exports are 2.6 billion dollars. The total size of Pakistan’s IT industry is more than 4 billion dollars. Our IT companies have a lot of money lying around. Our people are still putting their dollars out there. We are thinking how to stop the flow of dollars abroad. In the next few days, a mechanism will be arrived at to retain dollars for the IT industry. Corporate debit card system is going to be introduced.
The caretaker federal minister says that it has also been decided to introduce a national roaming policy and infrastructural policy to improve the telecom service in the country. The infrastructure sharing policy will be presented in the upcoming cabinet meeting, while the national roaming infrastructure has been established. National roaming will start on national highways in Duma.
Dr. Umar Saif said that local mobile phone manufacturing deletion policy is being introduced to promote the manufacturing of mobile phone parts in the country, while providing three percent R&D allowance on exports to promote the exports of mobile phone sets from Pakistan. The policy is being brought for which the consultation is in the final stage.
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