By Aitizaz Hassan

ISLAMABAD, August 5, (INP-WealthPK): Special Technology Zone Authority (STZA) and Xining National Economic and Technology Development Zone (XETDZ) have joined hands to promote research in science and technology as well as industrialisation, WealthPK reports.

The STZA and XETDZ made the decision to cooperate with each other in the International Exchanges and Cooperation Forum on Eco-Civilisation in Qinghai province of China.

The STZA and XETDZ will cooperate in research and development, especially in emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud and quantum computing, semiconductors and the design and manufacturing of smart devices.

There are 99 institutes and more than 70,000 scientists, researchers and technicians in XETDZ. The scientists conduct research in different fields. The zone has also seven universities with 12,000 students and 18 secondary technical schools with nearly 10,000 students.

Hamza Saeed, the director of strategic planning and client services at STZA told WealthPK that the Authority was focusing on the fourth industrial revolution and wanted to mainstream Pakistan’s technology.

He said that the factors of production were changed in the fourth industrial revolution. The large-scale production method is getting old. The fourth industrial revolution encourages work on the small factor of production.

“New factors of production are human brain, laptop and internet. Now the boundaries don’t matter. People will serve their clients in China by sitting in Pakistan,” said hamza Saeed.

He said that STZA was a great opportunity for the youth of Pakistan because it was focusing not only on information technology but on technology as a whole. He said that every sector was dependent on technology so they needed to see technology horizontally, which would cross many sectors.

In a statement, STZA Chairman Amer Hashmi said the unutilised state land had been given to the companies on lease to promote ‘knowledge economy’ in the country.

He said with the establishment of 60 parks in one year, the country could generate about $5 billion in revenue in two to three years. He said that currently, China tops the world with 169 technology parks followed by the United States with 115 clusters-based zones, the UK with 63, India with 23, Iran with 16, Malaysia with five and Egypt with three such parks. There is no such functioning technology zone in Pakistan.

The STZA chairman said the concept of combined efforts and cooperation for the promotion of research and development among academia, government and industry was materialised in the 1950s as Stanford Research Park was established in California, the USA.

Later, the concept was followed by the development of Tsukuba Science City in Japan, Zhongguancun Park in China and Daedeok Technopolis in South Korea. The success of these parks prompted countries across the globe to enact special laws to promote knowledge and encourage innovations for the development of their economies.

“The Special Technology Zones Authority was established in October 2021 under an Act of Parliament. It is being operated under the Cabinet Division,” said Amer Hashmi in the statement, available with WealthPK.

Credits: Independent News Pakistan—Wealthpk