The government is planning to introduce standard operating procedures (SOPs) to ensure proper utilization of Pakistani satellites by the local users. This will help to reduce dependence on foreign satellites and avoid foreign exchange flows.
The ministry of information technology and telecom has reported to the ECC that national space assets’ utilisation could have generated around $544 million (Rs85 billion) since 2004 but still has the potential to generate about $600-700m by 2030 through effective expansion of Paksat Satellite services. The total satellite capacity usage in Pakistan is approximately 2200 MHz out of which 21 per cent is on Pakistani satellites and the rest on foreign satellites. In financial terms, a minimum of $35-40m per year is going out of the country and default of users of Pakistan satellites has slowly piled up to about $22.48m.
All other countries in the region including India, Bangladesh prohibit the use of foreign satellite systems, thus providing financial protection to their own space programmes.
