‘Pakistan lack laws on ICT’

Speaker says the sector faces global competition.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has no policies or laws and regulations for information communication technology (ICT) besides intellectual property rights (IPR), which are the main hindrances in promotion of the of ICT ecosystem in the country, according to a prominent software industry figure.

Former Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA) Chairman Shoaib A Khan was giving talk on “The Ecosystem of ICT Sector of Pakistan and suggestions for improvements of weak Links”, at a session  on 2nd day of the 12 international Conference on Frontiers’ of Information Technology (FIT- 2104), organised by COMSATS University on Thursday.

Khan said there was a little support for incubators and entrepreneurship, while global competition with the US, Europe, Japan, Korea, China, and India is also a major challenge faced by the ICT sector of the country.

He said ICT is an umbrella term that includes any communication device or application, encompassing, radio, cellular phones, computer and network hardware and software as well as the various services and applications associated with them.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 19^th, 2014.