Aitizaz Hassan

The broader picture of China-Pakistan digital corridor can be sketched over 12 different corridors between the two countries, and it will be like a big highway with 12 lanes, said a leading IT analyst.

“Initially, Pakistan and China can work on three top corridors. The first is the SDGs corridor, which can be named China-Pakistan SDGs corridor. The second should be China-Pakistan cyber security corridor, and the third can be China-Pakistan emerging technologies corridor. They can work on these three corridors first and gradually go for all 12 corridors,” said Ammar Jafferi, founder of Digital Pakistan, an IT think tank, in an interview with WealthPK.

“These corridors can create huge employment opportunities for Pakistanis,” Jafferi said. He said work is also underway on China-Pakistan rural corridor where rural areas will be interlinked to each other. Similarly, he said, China-Pakistan school corridor is also being planned where the educational institutions of the two countries will be connected.

Jafferi said he has discussed the conceptual idea of various corridors with relevant government institutions. He said it will be a solution to many problems in Pakistan. “Pakistan should provide training to population living around China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) interchanges for the upcoming jobs,” Jafferi Said.

The analyst noted that China has already launched driverless trucks. “Suppose, if they send driverless chargeable trucks on CPEC, are we ready to deal with them. Is our transport department trained to deal with driverless trucks and its facilitations,” he said, adding that Pakistan should establish technology zones around CPEC. Jafferi said the government should find the most competent people to run these technology zones. He said it is good that Pakistan owns technology zones, but expert hands are also needed to run them to full potential.

The founder of Digital Pakistan said Pakistan is an amazing nation and its youth is a great resource that needs proper training and capacity building for maximum dividends. He emphasised that digital transformation is the word to remember. “There are three driving forces of digital transformation, namely artificial intelligence (AI), internet of things (IoT) and Blockchain. AI is software of digital transformation, the IoT is hardware, while Blockchain will provide framework and security,” he said.

He said the financial credit source is almost nowhere between China and Pakistan. He said the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) should come forward to resolve this issue that how can a Pakistani freelancer bring money from China. He said that Digital Pakistan can provide solutions to create financial channels between China and Pakistan.

Credit : Independent News Pakistan-WealthPk