ICT is driving force for economic growth, Dr. Mohammed Yaseen

Chairman Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) Dr. Mohammed Yaseen said that improved quality of telecom system and services has become a critical determinant of competitiveness in Information and Communications Technology (ICT), therefore, the policy makers are focusing on ICT not only as an element of support but also as a driving force of economic growth. This he said during his visit and address as Chief Guest to 11th ITCN ASIA 2011 international exhibition and conference at Expo Center Karachi..
He said that revolution and convergence of technological platforms will continue to bring even more opportunities, development and growth aspects for market and subscribers. We at PTA believe to remain focused but also tailor a “Roadmap” for securing a win together with the market players and the relevant stakeholders in future as well.
Dr.Mohammed Yaseen said that we are going to deliberate on future of telecommunication, I certainly feel quite contended that this promising regime in Pakistan’s economy will continue bringing in substantial revenues and creating remarkable job opportunities. This may not only be limited to emerging technologies (3G, 4G) but rather the connected services (e-service, mobile banking) as well. We have been following a technology-neutral model which may prevail in coming era he added.
He said that PTA has envisioned that total telecom investments will reach US$ 2.4 billion by 2020, whereas the Telecom sector revenues would cross Rs. 620 billion by the same year. He mentioned that in the wake of growing trend of the mobile services, it can be predicted that the fixed line subscribers would more or less maintain the 5 million averages till 2020, while the broadband subscribers are expected to be 19.5 million. The mobile subscribers are likely expected to be around 161 million, approximately 89{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} of the total population.
He further said that with the advent of New Generation Networks, Internet Multimedia Service (IMS) platforms and Internet Protocol applications, the boundaries between transmission of Data, Voice and Video have vanished by virtue of IP Data, VoIP and IPTV. Telecoms in near future will be simpler while multimedia services are going to be delivered across all-IP broadband. At the end of conference Chairman PTA distributed shields among the participants.