Prime Minister Imran Khan has constituted a multi-stakeholder Committee on the Local Manufacturing of SIMs/Smart Cards to save the foreign exchange, according to the Economic Survey 2020-21.
The survey revealed that evidently approximately seven million SIM cards and 10,000 banking cards are being imported every month as the current import regime incentivizes such imports.
The committee is deliberating over the matter to save the foreign exchange.
The survey also showed that the Mobile Device Manufacturing policy has been approved to promote the local manufacturing and assembly of mobile handsets. Pakistan enjoys a low-cost labor advantage, a reasonably large home market with more than 178 million subscribers that have increased by approximately one percent per month during the last year, and 83.3 percent of teledensity and efficient Device Identification Registration & Blocking System (DIRBS) in place that make it an attractive market for mobile assembly.
