KARACHI, Aug 27: President General Pervez Musharraf has expressed confidence that the future of Information Technology (IT) and telecommunications in Pakistan is bright. Speaking at the inaugural session of the international conference on information and communication technology here on Saturday, the president pointed out that this sector is currently experiencing a boom.

The two-day moot is being held under the auspices of the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Karachi.

“I am confident that the future of IT and telecommunications in Pakistan is bright”, he observed and urged the youngsters to take up the profession.

He informed the participants of the conference who included IT professionals, experts, chief executives of various firms, faculty and students of IBA, that Pakistan was even going for e-governance in a big way. “We are looking for paperless governance,” he said.

The president said this was the area of progress and the country would soon be known as a progressive, modern and dynamic state.

He stated that by accelerating the introduction of “paperless governance” quite a number of openings would be available to the professionals for e-governance and computerization in the country.

The president was of the view that although literacy rate in Pakistan was low, the country had good minds and qualified manpower.

About the economic activity in the country in the realms of telecommunication, he pointed out as many as 14 million mobile phones were sold in Pakistan in the past two years and it shows that instruments worth Rs 140 billion have been bought by the people of the country and they were from the middle and lower-middle sections of the society.

President Musharraf also spoke about privatization of Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) and observed that the government had ensured that a public sector monopoly is not passed on to private sector monopoly.

The president pointed out that as far as the fixed line is concerned, it depended on fibre optic connectivity and the main issue is the “backbone” and there was only one backbone channel running from south to north.

Gen Musharraf also referred to the state of telecommunications when India is outsourcing in IT up to four to five billion dollars and targeting more than dollars 10 billion and we do not have even 100 million dollars.

He said the people had to wait for years for getting a telephone connection in that point of time.

ST PATRICK’S REUNION: Earlier, addressing the reunion of Old Patricians on Friday, the President said a wholesome strategy for education had been formulated by the present government.