Telecom import increases by 38.87 percent

The Economic Survey 2020-21 noted that Mobile Device Manufacturing policy has been approved to promote local manufacturing and assembly of mobile handsets. As a reasonably large home market having more than 178 million subscribers, Pakistan enjoys low-cost labor advantage. Government is all set to make mobile phone manufacturing industry larger than automobile. This will also boost the expected employment turnover in few years. During July-May 2020-21, the country has imported mobile phones worth $1.860 billion. In comparison to the last year, the import was around $1.138 billion, depicting the growth of 63.40 percent. The overall telecom imports during the period under review, increased by 47.18 percent by going up from $1.587 billion in 2019-20 to $12.337 billion during the current fiscal year. On year-on-year basis, the imports of mobile phones increased by 58.03 percent during May 2021, when compared to the imports of the same month of last year. On month-on-month basis, the mobile phone imports decreased by 17.79 percent in May 2021, when compared to the imports of $148.992 million in April 2021. On year-on-year basis, the overall telecom imports into the country increased by 38.87 percent during May 2021 when compared to the imports of the same month of last year.