Last Updated on: 9th July 2023, 07:16 pm
Short-Sighted Government Policies Hamper Mobile Phone Exports
The import restrictions and increased taxes should encourage local production and healthier exports, but this backfires in many cases. Pakistan’s mobile phone exports are unlikely to be hampered by government policies that have hitherto hampered the country’s export potential.
Mobile phone makers in Pakistan have informed the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications of restrictions on obtaining letters of credit (LC) that prevent them from meeting local demand for phones, let alone supplying them for export.
These LCs have to import components that cannot be manufactured locally and are used for the manufacture of mobile phones.
These key components include cameras, motherboards, and other tech devices, which are generally exported from the United States, China, Korea, Japan, and some European countries.
The first export of 4G handsets came in August last year after receiving an order from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for 120,000 units. The same company responsible for this order now says that achieving this goal has become increasingly difficult due to import restrictions imposed by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).
Zeeshan Mian Noor, CEO of Inovi Telecom said:
We were all very happy when the first shipment of 5,500 handsets marked ‘Made in Pakistan’ were shipped to the United Arab Emirates in August 2021, but things have not been good for the handset manufacturing industry in recent years.
He added that local handset makers have been unable to secure export orders since August last year due to these inconsistent policies.
Also Read: New Import Taxes On Mobile Phones
They promised us bigger incentives and a 5% discount on exports, but these guarantees were not fulfilled by the government.
The CEO said only $83 million in LCs had been granted instead of the original $150 million request.