In a meeting recently held with the delegation of GSMA in Islamabad, the State Minister for Revenue Mr. Hammad Azhar spoke about various Telecom and IT initiative taken by the new government. At the meeting he also informed them that the government is working on rationalizing the tax structure on the mobile phones for ease of the consumers. The GSMA delegation is on a 4 day visit to Pakistan. During their stay they met with number of prominent people from the IT and Telecom industry including PTA, Mobile Network Operators, OEMs and discussed various matters regarding ICT industry of Pakistan.
The delegation from GSMA consisted of Julian Bishop, VP New Product Development; Adrian Dodd- Head of managed Services; Chris Li, Outreach Director IMEI Blacklist Service; Saira Faisal, Senior Ecosystem Manager; and Khalid Khan, Chairman Central Asian Cellular Forum.
At the meeting, the Minister informed the delegation that they are working on other policy initiatives to ensure that the mobile eco system specially the local assembly and manufacturing is encouraged. The GSMA delegation also congratulated the Minister on successfully introducing DIRBS in Pakistan. According to the delegation, DIRBS is to play a major role in improving the device eco-system in Pakistan and help in improving the country’s economic situation.
Speaking on the occasion, Julian Bishop GSMA Vice Presidentsaid “GSMA has the largest IMEI repository in the world, and is collaborating with PTA in device identification system which has been a great honor since Pakistan is one of the very few countries who have introduced such a system that shall be emulated by other countries.” She also highlighted that the need to increase internet penetration and rationalization of taxes on import of the smartphones will help in Government in achieving this objective.
