KARACHI, May 6: Federal Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication, Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari, has said that the local IT firms can enter into joint ventures with Indian firms and there is no restriction whatsoever from the government.

While addressing the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) here on Tuesday, the minister said that IT and telecom sectors had great potential and it was high time to tap this potential for the economic prosperity of the country.

Awais said India’s annual software exports were more than $2 billion and our exports were between $20 to $30 million. “The reason for this big difference, in my opinion, is that we are not producing quality human resources, whereas India is producing and utilizing one of the best human resources”, the minister added.

He further said in our country private IT universities and institutions were not producing quality human resources because of the curriculum being taught was not up to international standards and did not meet the requirements needed to produce quality IT professionals.

He maintained that since we were facing severe competition from our regional competitors, it would be most appropriate to increase interaction with the IT firms of those countries by developing cooperation with them, which would not only make it possible for us to learn new technologies from them but would also help us overcome our shortcomings.

He called for an end to monopoly of English-based softwares by developing softwares based on regional languages to capture local markets, which would help us ease the unemployment situation and enable the country to earn more revenues by higher exports of softwares. The minister also listened to the problems of the business community, especially IT industry, and exchanged views with them to identify the impediments hampering the growth of that industry.

The minister assured KCCI that thePTCL would only be sold off if the price offered by the prospective buyers was good enough. He said in future it would be ensured that any new service and product by the PTCL was introduced with the collaboration of the private sector.

The minister observed that during the past three years about 1,400 cities of the country had been provided with Internet facilities, but the quality of service was very poor and needed to be improved.

Responding to a question regarding high-line rates and duration of local calls, the minister said it was a most common complain made by the corporate sector and the government was taking it seriously.

He pointed out that his ministry had prepared a deregulation policy for the telecom sector. He expressed the hope that the policy, after being approved from the federal cabinet, would bring the PTCL monopoly to an end, and the consequent entry of new companies in that sector would lead to rationalization of call charges and improvement of other services. “ This will ultimately reduce the number of complaints against the PTCL,” the minister added.

He said the PTCL was planning to introduce wireless phones to cut the huge cost being incurred on cables and operational maintenance, and was trying to make customer-care services more efficient by using new technologies.

The minister said research and development activity had come to a virtual halt and that could be gauged from the fact that a huge sum of Rs1 billion for R&D remained unutilized. He urged businessmen to come up with productive projects and useful proposals so that the fund could be utilized in an efficient manner.

KCCI president Mian Nasser Hyatt Maggo also spoke.