KARACHI, Jan 27: IT and Telecom Minister Awais Ahmed Leghari has said that the main challenge for the government in the telecom sector is to ensure that the environment it had brought into play is properly regulated and the interests of investors are taken care of along with the interests of consumers.

Mr Leghari made these observations at the "BMA Pakistan Investor Forum" organized by the BMA Capital Market Research Group here on Thursday. The issue under discussion was "2005 - the outlook for the banking and telecom sector" and the minister joined the teleconference from Davos, Switzerland, where he is attending the World Economic Forum.

Earlier, keynote speaker NBP President Ali Raza stated that over the next three to five years, mergers were increasingly made between smaller institutions that might be doing well financially but might not have the capital or scale to invest in technology to bring their products up to a level required to be competitive in the market.

Other key participants included PTCL Chairman Zaffar Khan and Mobilink CEO Zouhair Khaliq.