PESHAWAR, Nov 14: Provincial Governor Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah on Thursday stressed the need of promoting the information technology in the country to compete in the global market.

He was speaking at the inaugural ceremony of a website ‘Peshawar1.com’ here at a local hotel.

The governor extolled the young experts who had developed the website and said there was a dire need to encourage, support and assist the youth in the field of information technology.

The government had to provide them a proper environment and encourage them to continue their activities and promote the IT education in this part of the world, he added.

He said there was a bright future for those who had taken up this technology as their profession in future, but the people knew little about this because the country was at an earlier stage of developing the information technology.

The governor was of the view that the developed countries of the world had made tremendous progress after attaining advancement in the IT sector and urged experts to make unrelenting efforts for shifting the workings of different fields towards the new digital and computerised system.

He conceded that at present the country ran short of human resource in the IT sector, but expressed the hope that the situation would be changed within the next couple of years when the IT professionals in a large number would be available throughout the country.  

The governor told the audience that the government was trying to create an e-government system and at present different options were being studied in this regard.

He said that presenting process of the required material through websites was difficult than creating a website. Therefore, web page owners must be realistic to deliver the message, he added.

The launching of this city website, he said, was also another step in the process to globalize this historic city through the most modern, latest and popular digital system.

He expressed the confidence that the young managers of Peshawar1.com would continue their efforts and come up to the expectations of the people.

Executive director of the website told the gathering that in the beginning, they had introduced 21 dynamics, but the education, tourism, business and journalism were focal points in the project.

He informed the audience that the website would provide updated news, online surveys and opinion polls. He also said that online shopping services and offers for launching joint ventures in different trades would also be made available on it.