Aitizaz Hassan

ISLAMABAD, July 27: Pakistan has great opportunities to explore China’s technology skills, as China is growing fast in terms of information technology (IT) and its digital assets are increasing, said Dr Tahir Mumtaz Awan, the head of China Study Center (CSC) of the COMSATS University.

Dr Tahir said Zong initiated by China Mobile is the most successful internet services provider (ISP) in Pakistan. Zong is currently giving the best service among all the ISPs, while Pakistan’s top ISPs, including PTCL, is using the hardware devices of Huawei and Zhongxing Telecom equipment cooperation (ZTE).

He said China was working officially with Pakistan to build technology parks across the country. He said the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication had already constituted joint working groups to develop technology parks in various cities of Pakistan.

Dr Tahir said the COMSATS had also submitted three proposals to develop tech parks.  Although practically these parks will work with the Chinese support under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), their main purpose is to unleash the potential of IT in Pakistan.

“In just one year, Pakistan has secured the third position in Amazon new sellers ranking. We are just behind China and the United States. Services contribute 40% to Pakistan’s economy, while IT and freelancing industry is the main contributor to the GDP of Pakistan. Pakistan just needs to push the stock market integration and e-commerce industry”, Dr Tahir Mumtaz added.

Dr Tahir said the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and China Association for Trade Services recently arranged an e-commerce training session for Pakistani youth. The association will also take the successful participants to China for six to one year to take hands-on experience about the e-commerce market of China.

“We need to set our direction in term of utilizing technology. Apparently, TikTok is considered just an entertainment source in Pakistan but it has many uses and advantages. In the ADB training session, a trainer talked for around three hours about the advantages and utilization of TikTok. If you open Douyin, the parent application of TikTok, you will see purposeful videos with a lesson,” Dr Tahir added.

The head of China Study Center said except the provincial capitals of Pakistan, the universities in other cities lack practical practices in terms of technology transformation.

“We need to give access to technology to everyone. The universities are focusing more on academic work in information technology, while we need to work practically in the remote areas in a collaborative way.”

“The vocational center which has good relations with China based on CPEC, can collaborate with Chinese companies. The joint centers can help in technology surge. The issue is that there is a serious glitch to select a right student for a right job. We should link our students with China’s technology. There are some excellent Chinese companies working in Pakistan. We should build industry academia linkage for jobs opportunities and industry orientation experience,” said Dr Tahir.  

Credits: INP-WealthPk