KARACHI: Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication (MOITT), Syed Amin ul Haque said that government was focused on promotion of research and development activities for encouragement of entrepreneurship in country.

Addressing distribution ceremony of 1st Hameed and Azra Awards in field of Quality Academic Research in Pakistan held at Karachi University to recognise and honour services of young researchers and scholars. Vice Chancellor Prof. Dr. Khalid M Iraqi, Deans of faculties, senior faculty members, scholars and number of students attended ceremony. He said that cellular phone companies operating in Pakistan were being charged with a tax at rate of 2 percent and out of that 1.5 percent was being used to improve connectivity of underserved areas while remaining amount was being utilised on research and development purposes.

IT ministry was keen to encourage entrepreneurship and promotion of R&D activities in higher educational institutions, he said and assured that ministry was ready to provide its all-out support for any such initiative at Karachi University. Government has facilitated mobile phone manufacturing at local level to ensure universal digital connectivity and availability of low cast smart phones to every citizen and now 28 companies including some international brands had started local production, he said.

National Incubation Centres were established in major cities of Pakistan to support entrepreneurs and startups which played a pivotal role in swift growth of startups and now a number of IT based companies not only attracting investment of millions of dollars but also facilitating citizens in various fields of life, he said. IT exports reached at $ 2.62 billion with 47 percent growth in year 2021-22 and target for next year is $ 5 billion, he said. Prof. Dr. Khalid M Iraqi, Aamir Hameed and others also spoke. Later, Minister distributed awards among researchers and scholars in field of Social Sciences, Education, Islamic Learning, Science and Pharmacy.

Published in The Daily National Courier, November, 11 2022

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