Awais eyes 50m phone subscribers by 2010
By Ali Imran

ISLAMABAD—Minister for Information Technology Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari Thursday said that Pakistan was poised to become an even more attractive place for investment in telecom and IT sectors at the back of an accelerated economic and telecom growth.
“In our forecast, the tele-density should improve to about 30 per cent by the year 2009-10, implying an addition of over 30 million more fixed and mobile telephones in the country,” he said in a welcome address to the inaugural session of the 10th sitting of the General Assembly of the Asia-Pacific Community. The minister said telecom sector was “the fastest growing sector of our economy”. “Pakistan now is the second fastest growing telecom market in Asia after China as the telecom and IT sectors are attracting recognition of print and electronic media, and advertising world,” he said, adding the boom in the sector was visible through easy availability of telecom products/services in all the nooks and corners of the country.
He said cellular mobile, wireless local loop and broadband sectors offered lot of opportunities for vendor and operators as the market had the potential to reach 50 million subscribers by 2009-10. “Fixed and mobile sectors attracted foreign and local investment/commitment of over US $ 4 billion in terms of licenses and initial infrastructure ... next five years are likely to receive additional investment of over US $ 3-4 billion in the infrastructure deployment,” he said. He told the delegates the combined tele-density in last two years in Pakistan had more than doubled from 4.5 per cent to over 15 per cent of population. “Mobile sector has shown growth of over 100 per cent in last two years while the total number of subscribers of fixed and mobile has increased from 8 million two years back to over 22 million (mobile 17 million, fixed 5.9 million) now.
The minister also predicted a massive increase in bandwidth usage through fixed and mobile sectors may increase from present 800 MB to over 6000 MB. “In the same period with growing broadband penetration, webelieve that third-party content business would gain enormous momentum,” he said, adding the government was playing its due role in facilitating and promoting this area as it would also create considerable job opportunities. He told the delegates ICT sector had already become an engine for overall socio-economic development all over the world. “ICT has assumed a major role in not only making immense contribution to the GDP of individual countries, but it has also been affecting almost all the sectors of economies,” he said.
He said the rate of growth in the ICT sector had been tremendous, and Asia-Pacific region could be cited as a leading example in this regard. “Be it the proliferation of broadband, internet or the ever-increasing use of mobile services, the region has been a hub of activity of all ICT-enabled services, and is surely the fastest growing region in the world of ICT, and for all this progress, APT deserves all the credit and accolades for providing countries of the region with a forum at which we can share our country-experiences and learn from each other,” he said. He noted that in line with the agenda of APT, ICT sector growth and proliferation of such services had been major items of agenda of the present policy framework being followed by Pakistan.
He said the government had extended its full support to IT and Telecom sector development, first through the approval of fixed line, mobile and broadband policies, and then by ensuring an above-board, transparent and effective implementation of these policies. Awais said the due to deregulation policies, the telecom sector in Pakistan had witnessed exponential growth, benefits of which were being passed on to both the industry as well as the consumers in the form ofincreased tele-density, access to inexpensive and accessible services, and return on investment to the shareholders.
He said the government was committed to supporting the industry in all possible ways. “We will ensure delivery on all our commitments such as the continuity of policies, transparency of process, continued facilitation and a consultative approach. “Government’s initiatives have received international recognition and this has generated tremendous interest both amongst foreign and local investors who participated in the process with vigour and confidence,” he said. Awais Leghari said appropriate infrastructure availability was one the key areas to support the ever-increasing and expanding telecom services. “As part of its policies, the government is also aware of the redundancy requirements and alternate means to ensure that high-quality infrastructure is available for the provision of uninterrupted telecom operations and services,” he said.
He told the conference delegates Pakistan was already in the process of adding redundancy to its existing international connectivity through fiber optic cables as SEA ME WE 3 was so far the only optical fiber cable connecting Pakistan to the external world and was a single point of failure for country’s international communication, vulnerable to both natural causes and clandestine activity.