Aitizaz Hassan

ISLAMABAD, July 21: Pakistan and China have approved further cooperation on digital space including various areas of information technology.  The Special Technology Zones Authority (STZA) and Zhongguancun Belt and Road Industrial Promotion Association (ZBRA) of People’s Republic of China have expressed their interest to work in research and development, especially in emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud and quantum computing, semiconductors, internet of things (IoT) and smart devices design and manufacturing.

Talking to WealthPK, Director Strategic Planning and head of China Desk at STZA Hamza Saeed Orakzai said the STZA offering various opportunities aimed to ensure the ease of doing business for the Chinese tech investors in Pakistan including tax incentives, regulatory help and one-window assistance. He said few Chinese tech giants were already in the application cycle.

“We have assured the Chinese firms that the special technology zones (STZs) will be planned within the purview of sustainable development goals and hence purposefully designed to be eco-friendly,” Hamza added. 

Hamza said the STZA had already notified STZs in Islamabad, Lahore and Haripur, while more STZs in Sindh, Balochistan, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir were in the pipeline under the national roll-out plan.

The official said 4,500 representatives of the Chinese technology ecosystem, including science and technology parks, high-tech production enterprises, technology companies, investment organizations, research and development centers, Chinese state-owned infrastructure companies, and Chinese agencies of national, provincial, and municipal governments attended the conference.

The stakeholders agreed to cooperate in an online conference which is probably termed one of the biggest forums held between Pakistan and China of this kind in terms of participation from Chinese companies. STZA, Cabinet Division, Pakistan’s Embassy in Beijing, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ZBRA jointly participated in China-Pakistan Technology Investment Conference (CPTIC) virtually.

Ambassador of Pakistan to China, Moin ul Haque expressed his strong acknowledgement for the diplomatic ties between two nations and said that the Ministry of Science and Technology and Ministry of Information Technology had established special joint working groups for technology parks in Pakistan under the CPEC framework. He recognized China as a global leader in the technology industry and said both the countries had many avenues to cooperate in the field of technology sector.

Speaking at the conference, Amer Hashmi, Chairman STZA, said China was a leading partner in developing the knowledge ecosystem in Pakistan. He said the STZA had set up a dedicated China desk to help the Chinese technology companies and large-scale enterprises investing in Pakistan’s STZs. The STZs are being developed under the Triple Helix Model of Innovation, bringing together the government, industry and academia to remove barriers and create the ease of doing business for domestic and foreign technology sector companies.

Cao Zhouhua, First Secretary of Science and Technology at the Chinese embassy in Pakistan, said both sides were exploring multi-spectral cooperation in the technology sector including knowledge sharing, zone development, research, policy development, joint training of professionals, and management of STZs as per international benchmarks.

Zhang Xiaodong, President ZBRA, said due to the technology boom in China, taxation revenue had increased by 2,000 times over the last 30 years. He called for integration of the Chinese and Pakistani universities for joint research and development to enable and support the China Pakistan Innovation Centre in China. He said ZBRA and STZA under a partnership were exploring avenues of cooperation for the development of STZs in Pakistan.

Credits: INP-WealthPk