Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet has been forwarded a summary by the ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication seeking incentives for the local manufacture of smartphones.
The summary seeks incentives for local manufacturing/assembling of mobile devices, which will expectedly shift the focus from import of mobiles in completely built units (CBU) to semi-knocked down and completely knocked down (CKD) condition. Duty on CBU imports would be enhanced, thus making local assembly/manufacturing feasible vis-à-vis imports of mobile devices in CBU conditions.
The smartphone market is growing very rapidly around the world. Around 1.5 billion units of smartphones were sold in 2019 worldwide. The number had been only 122 million in 2007.
The value of Pakistan’s mobile phone market stands at Rs366 billion, which is even higher than the value of the auto sector which is around Rs360 billion. If the government is able to offer the right incentives at this time it would help to manufacturers to relocate to Pakistan where the labor is also cheaper than China and India.
