South Asia Investor Review

Pakistan Federal Board of Revenue has recently announced that “Sales Tax and Income Tax at import stage has been drastically reduced in case of smartphones of Rs15,000 or below". This action was apparently taken after Digital Pakistan Initiative led by Tania Aidrus asked for it. It has come under fire from the country's nascent mobile phone and smartphone manufacturing industry which is producing low-cost mobile phones. Pakistan's mobile handset market is the 8th largest in the world. Current annual demand is for about 40 million units of which 13 million are assembled in Pakistan while the rest are imported, according to a report by Dunya News. The import bill for Fiscal Year 2020 is expected to be about $1.2 billion. Boosting it will save billions of dollars of precious foreign exchange. It will create tens of  thousands of jobs  and spawn new auxiliary manufacturing industries for chargers, headphones, USB cables, cases, etc.  In future, Pakistan could become a sign...

Eminent Pakistani economist Dr. Nadeemul Haq (no relation to Riaz Haq) interviewed Riaz Haq last week for his podcast " Soch Bichar " to talk about the subject of "Digitization in Pakistan" in Urdu. Here is a summary of the interview: Dr. Nadeemul Haq: How do you define "digitization"?  Riaz Haq: To me,  digitization  on a national scale is pervasive use of digital technologies in all aspects of life: business, trade, industry, media, finance, government, education, sports, entertainment, military, etc etc. NH: What is happening in Pakistan on digitization? RH: Jahangir Tareen, a close aide to Prime Minister Imran Khan, has recently announced the hiring of a woman of Pakistani origin who is currently working for Google in Singapore. He said she will lead the  digitization effort  in Pakistan from the Prime Minister's office. NH: Is digitization possible in Pakistan? RH: Yes, it is possible. Digitization requires digital infrastructure an...