Day: January 24, 2022

The import of COVID vaccines and various relevant medicines to deal with the pandemic has put significant pressure on the country’s trade deficit.

Pakistan’s import bill of medicinal products swelled by 475% or 4.75 times to $3.1 billion, mainly due to the imports related to the COVID pandemic and raw material during the first half of the fiscal year 2022 compared to $539 million in the same period of FY21.

Currently, the Government of Pakistan has been importing vaccines, corona test kits, and other corona-related products from China, the USA, and other countries to deal with the pandemic. In addition, the country is also relying on donations of these products from different countries and international organizations.

An official from the Ministry of Commerce (MoCom), told ProPakistani that the import bill of medicinal products surged to $3.1 billion during the first half of the current fiscal year compared to $539 million during the same period of the last fiscal year.

The figures show that the pandemic put pressure not only on household income but also on forex reserves due to high imports of corona-related medicines and instruments, including ventilators and vaccines.

Economic expert, Dr. Waqar Ahmed, says that there are several reasons behind this increase. He said that the import of the covid 19 vaccine and booster has contributed to increasing the import bill, and it is expected to come down after March 2022.

While explaining the different reasons, he said that the Pharma industry uses imported raw materials for manufacturing its products to fulfill the growing demand for exports. He also said that Pakistan had to import medicine for Afghanistan during the last quarter. This pressure also will be decreased as soon as the international community takes this burden of Afghanistan’s medical requirement.

The import bill of medicinal products of the country surged to $975 million during December 2021 compared to $99.9 million in December 2020. It was recorded at $689 million in November 2021 during the Omicron variant outbreak in South Africa.

It is pertinent to mention that almost 35 percent population is fully vaccinated so far. According to the official figures, Pakistan administered 170.7 million doses of corona vaccines up to 23 January 2022, out of which, 78.8 million citizens are fully vaccinated while 102.97 people have had single doses so far.

Policymakers are also concerned that the pandemic is quickly growing, mainly due to Omicron cases. Pakistan accelerated the vaccination process besides the conduction of 50 thousand average daily corona tests.

However, during the past few days, the country has recorded the highest number of daily cases since February 2020.

This trend shows that there will be no relaxed moment in the near future for the Pakistani economy in terms of import bill of corona-related medicines and instruments until Pakistan takes a step towards manufacturing.

Source: Pro Pakistani

Jazz on Monday officially launched Pakistan’s largest data center, the ‘Jazz Digital Park (JDP)”, in Islamabad.

Chief Executive Officer, Veon Group, Kaan Terziolu graced the inauguration ceremony as chief guest. CEO, Jazz, Aamir Ibrahim and other senior executives of the company attended the launch ceremony.

Addressing the ceremony, the Veon chief reassured his company’s commitment to fostering a vibrant digital ecosystem in Pakistan. “Jazz Digital Park will serve as a key enabler of our digital operator strategy and is in line with our mission to simplify digital infrastructure challenges for local and regional enterprises,” he underlined.

Aamir Ibrahim emphasized the importance of developing a cloud adoption strategy and being prepared for the emerging technology. “The Jazz Digital Park represents a milestone for the country’s ICT industry as it is expected to simplify the digital infrastructure challenges local businesses face. This facility is at the heart of our business strategy and validates our commitment to our customers as they continue their digital transformation journey,” he stated.

The Jazz Digital Park is aimed at helping the country achieve its digital transformation goals by dramatically enhancing the current quality of IT services supplied to various sectors in the telecom industry. Being hailed as Pakistan’s largest Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) Tier-III accredited data center in terms of white space and power capacity, Jazz will use it to provide enterprises and local entrepreneurs with safe IT infrastructure and hardware hosting.

Jazz Digital Park has one of the most extensive IT facilities, allowing organizations, including service providers, to co-locate their mission-critical IT infrastructure. These cutting-edge features meet all of a business’s operational needs, including 24/7 customer service, security, and system backups.

These state-of-the-art features fulfill all technical requirements for a business including 24/7 customer support, security, and system backups.

Source: Pro Pakistani

The production of mobile handsets by local manufacturing plants during the calendar year 2021 stood at 24.66 million compared to 13.05 million in 2020, registering an increase of 88 percent.

The commercial imports of mobile handsets stood at 10.26 million in 2021 compared to 24.51 million in 2020, according to the official data of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) available with Propakistani.

The number of locally manufactured/assembled mobile handsets increased by 2.54 million in December 2021 and the total production reached 24.66 million in the calendar year.

The production of mobile phones by local manufacturing plants has more than doubled against the import of commercial mobile phones in the country during 2021.

However, despite the increase in the local production of mobile phones, Pakistan imported mobile phones worth $1.09 billion during the first half (July-December) of the fiscal year 2021 compared to $938.82 million during the same period last year, registering a growth of 16.17 percent, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) data revealed that the local manufacturing trend reflects a positive uptake on the PTA’s Mobile Device Manufacturing (MDM) Authorization regulatory regime, whereby, local manufacturing within the first year of regime introduction has resulted in the production of 24.66 million phones in a short span of one year, including 10.06 million 4G smartphones.

As per the PTA data, 52 percent of mobile devices are smartphones and 48 percent are 2G on the Pakistan network.

The successful implementation of the Device Identification Registration and Blocking System (DIRBS) along with conducive government policies including the mobile manufacturing policy has created a favorable environment for mobile handset manufacturing in Pakistan.

It has also contributed positively to the mobile ecosystem of Pakistan by eliminating the counterfeit device market by providing a level-playing field for commercial entities and has created trust among consumers due to the formulation of standardized legal channels for all sorts of device imports.

The government had introduced a mobile manufacturing policy to encourage and attract manufacturers to establish their units in Pakistan.

The PTA in light of the policy issued Mobile Device Manufacturing (MDM) Regulations on 28th January 2021. Till now, 29 companies have been issued MDM Authorization enabling them to manufacture mobile devices in Pakistan. The companies include renowned brands such as Samsung, Nokia, Oppo, TECNO, Infinix, Vgotel and Q-mobile.

The establishment of 29 manufacturing plants has brought an investment of over $126 million and created over 10,000 jobs in a short span.

Source: Pro Pakistani