The incumbent federal government has formulated the Mobile Device Manufacturing Policy for encouraging local production as well as countering security threats.
The policy will ensure localization and indigenization of parts of mobile phones.
As many as 30 mobile manufacturers have been issued licenses for setting up local facilities and starting production of mobile devices in the country.
Federal Ministry of Industries and Production and Engineering Development (EBD) have taken a number of steps for establishing new industries for meeting the local demand and increasing production of export quality goods.
Two key policies in order to spur local manufacturing that have recently been launched include the Mobile Device Manufacturing Policy and Auto Industry Development and Export Policy (2021-26).
Under Auto Industry Development and Export Policy, a number of manufacturers have begun manufacturing/ assembling new brands of vehicles.
The sources said that Greenfield Technology was another initiative taken for both import substitution and export enhancement. Under this scheme, different incentives in terms of taxes and duties have been given to the companies by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) besides bringing new technologies for introducing innovative product design and reducing production costs.
Local manufacturing plants had manufactured/assembled 0.67 million mobile phones in August 2022. The manufactured/ assembled mobile phones hadsets by the local manufacturing plants during calendar year 2021 stood at 24.66 million compared too 13.05 million in 2020 indicating an appreciable increase of 88 per cent.
On other hand, the commercial imports of mobile phone handsets stood at 10.26 million in 2021 compared to 24.51 in 2020 ., as per the official data of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).
