IT to help Pakistan promote trade with Canada

Envoy urges entrepreneurs to collaborate with Canadian counterparts

ISLAMABAD: Keeping the Covid-19 pandemic in view, business and trade between Pakistan and Canada could be promoted by taking advantage of information technology, said Pakistan’s High Commissioner in Canada Raza Bashir Tarar.

Speaking at a virtual session of the Global Pakistan Tech Summit on Saturday, Tarar stressed that the use of IT would mitigate economic fallout of the pandemic.

The envoy urged Pakistan’s entrepreneurs to look into the possibility of collaboration with their Canadian counterparts in different sectors including education, financial services, professional services, manufacturing, construction and transportation.

“Pakistan’s Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication has adopted a facilitative approach for the IT sector and interaction with public sector stakeholders will result in better coordination,” he said.

“Digital development is on the rise and as per figures released by the State Bank of Pakistan, foreign direct investment in the ICT sector from July-March FY20 amounted to $491.3 million.”

He told summit participants that the Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB), an institution working under the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication, had shown a growth of 23.94% in the same nine-month period.

The discussion centered around facilitating startups and addressing the challenges they faced. There was consensus among the summit participants that startups needed to be science-focused and should possess academic and business rigour.

The conference noted that work ethics and business environment of a country needed to be taken into consideration for promoting business activities.

Canadian High Commissioner in Islamabad Wendy Gilmour, who was present in the conference, expressed her satisfaction with the Pakistani IT experts employed by Canadian companies with special reference to Faisalabad. She also appreciated the high quality of software development in Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 21^st, 2020.

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