ISLAMABAD, Feb 15: The government intends to launch a $10m venture fund to help transform feasible ideas and initiatives into successful businesses, Minister for Science and Technology Prof (Dr) Attaur Rehman said here on Friday.

A proposal has been sent to the finance ministry to create Pakistan’s own venture fund — a concept that is being widely followed in the Western countries, he said.

The fund will be utilized to assist people in setting up businesses.

The minister was speaking at the concluding session of a two- day international seminar on “Digital Divide”, which had been organized by Comstech at the Pakistan Academy of Sciences.

The minister regretted that the project had failed to materialize even when some Pakistani expatriates tried to do so with an investment of $5m to $10m. “We have not been able to make progress on the project despite the fact that the deadline for its completion has passed,” the minister said.

“We can also explore possibilities to create the fund with the assistance of Islamic countries,” he observed.

Meanwhile, the seminar also adopted a number of recommendations for the 10th OIC ministerial conference on science and technology.

The suggestions included formation of steering groups of industrial experts under the Comstech umbrella, proposals for the use of Islamic Development Bank (IDB) funds, launching of efforts to generate public awareness on the digital divide, need for adopting a business-wise approach that could by-pass the governments and induction of IT experts as policy-makers.

In E-commerce, the OIC was asked to consider E-vouchers as a payment method, set up merchant services and fix a deadline for introduction of E-governance in all OIC states.

In the field of agriculture, the OIC was asked to set up a forum of farmers, researchers and IT professionals, convert the farmer community centres into agriculture tele-centres, set up an agriculture portal at the OIC level and encourage trade activities among the OIC countries.

It was suggested that the OIC should set up a health portal, help the members share the medical research through tele-medicine, train doctors in IT and set up computer labs in hospitals.

It was also suggested that every Muslim country should commit to setting up science ministries and formulating IT policies.

The minister asked the Comstech to provide him with concept papers within a week and a list of projects within two months so that work on the projects could be started.

The minister said the Pakistani government had many projects in hand on which it wanted collaboration with Islamic countries on a bilateral or multilateral basis.