Awais urges APT countries to team up for ICTs’ promotion
By Ali Imran

ISLAMABAD—Minister for Information Technology Monday called for joint efforts by the governments and private sector in Asia Pacific region to reduce the digital divide and ensure fruits of information communication technologies to the masses.
He said in his address to the inaugural session of the 29th meeting of the management committee of Asia Pacific Tele-community. "The market-based process will not be enough and where the invisible hands of the market forces cannot do the job, the visible hands of the government must come into play to ensure a smooth pattern of growth and development," The minister whose address was read out to the conference by the IT secretary Farrakh Qayyum because of the latter's indisposition, said every one was aware of the rapid transformations taking place in this era of globalization and information. "Economic development theories based on the endowment of natural resources have lost their ground as information has come to be recognized as the key to economic development and wealth," he said.
He said the ICTs were the key enablers and catalyst in the development and transformation of a number of other economic sectors in this information age. "ICT pervasiveness in sectors like education, health, finance, manufacturing, logistics and the delivery of government services, is quite evident," he pointed out.
He described as essential the provision of equitable access to telecommunications facilities in order to harness the full potential of huge reserves of data available on the national and international public networks. "Connectivity and access to telecoms is the basis which enables the masses to make use of e-applications and data for the betterment of their lives and for improving the chances of having better financial opportunity," he said. Awais said the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) had declared 'the right to communicate' as fundamental to the notion of information society and all the governments and administrations owed to their citizens the task of making the digital opportunity work for them for their betterment in all spheres of life.
He noted that the APT region had already recorded fabulous success stories in the ICTs which was reflected in the astounding figures of cellular subscription in China, ubiquitous adoption and success of 3G technology in Japan, the broadband penetration rates of South Korea, the extent of success for e-government services in Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore and the strength of India in business process outsourcing.
He said Pakistan had also stepped into the race at full blast with the liberalization policies and the strength of competitive market process having given a huge boost to the affordability of communications for the masses, resulting in phenomenal growth figures. "We have been following a structured approach of liberalization, deregulation and the process of structural reform of the sector has recently completed with the privatization of the incumbent," he added.
He said the sequential steps of recent years had worked very well in helping the market process take a very strong root. "But we all know that the ultimate objective is the equitable availability of the opportunity to communicate to all our citizens and universal service of ICTs to all the regions of the country," he stressed. He said Pakistan had tackled this problem by setting up a multi-billion Universal Service Fund to expand the telecom coverage and access to far off areas through an efficient and transparent process of competitive bidding for subsidizing CAPEX for providing such services. "The repertoire of services and projects that could be funded will be kept broad to take as diverse a package of ICT services to such areas as possible for inclusion of all in the information society, he said.
The minister admitted that the importance of human capital could not be over emphasized in the global and knowledge-based economy of today. "The success of all the nations who have achieved significant growth in their economies can be traced to the availability of well trained and skilled workforce and adequate and meaningful investment in research and development," he said. He said the government of Pakistan had also taken steps in this regard by setting up a well-structured R&D funding setup in the area of ICTs with main emphasis on building of skills, HRD and research capacity within our academia and institutions. "With the rollout of the program, we expect to bridge the skill gap not just within our country but also expect to be able to export skilled workforce to countries and regions where demand exists," he told the delegates.
He noted that these issues were also at the centre stage of APT's agenda that stressed a meaningful cooperation and exchange of expertise and vision with member countries to help us achieve these goals faster and in a more useful way. He hoped the ongoing APT session would help provide fertile ground for useful deliberations and decision making for improved cooperation and further expansion of meaningful mutual help. "This is clearly the need of the hour if we are to achieve the objective of bridging the skill gaps and ultimately the digital divide among the member nations as well as inside the individual countries of the region," he added. Addressing the session, PTA chairman Shahzada Alam Malik called for greater cooperation and interaction between APT member countries to bridge the digital divide that prevailed in the region. He said the member countries faced identical problems of infrastructure development and the promotion and expansion of ICTs in the region.