February 16, 2023
Managing Committee, Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OICCI) met with Honorable President of Pakistan, Dr Arif Alvi at the Governor House Karachi. MC presented the OICCI Digital Report 2022, titled, “Recommendations for Digital Transformation in Pakistan” to the President, with an objective to set the country on its digital journey. The report covers suggestions on Digital Infrastructure and Connectivity, e-governance, HealthTech, EdTech, AgriTech, e-commerce, Fintech, IT exports and Web 3.0 technologies etc.
Digitization offers innovative employment prospects to the 23 percent of Pakistan’s population falling in 20 – 34 years age group, and can add $60 billion to Pakistan Economy within next 7 to 8 years. Research also shows that a 10 percent increase in broadband penetration results in increasing the GDP by 1.4 percent. This report offers key recommendations to the policymakers on the various facets of the digital transformation of economy including suggestions for digital infrastructure and connectivity, government, private sector, and mass digital usage, emerging web 3.0 technologies and digital regulations to accelerate innovation in Pakistan.
At present, internet penetration has grown to 49%, however, only 9% of cell towers are connected to fiber optic, compared to international benchmarks of 40% and regional comparisons of 80% in Malaysia and 90% in Thailand. Research shows that a 10% increase in broadband penetration results in increasing the GDP by 1.4%.
Digitization can help inclusion of the underserved population of the society. Around 23 million children in Pakistan are out of school and we have less than 1 physician for 1000 people. To help Pakistan overcome these issues it is important to digitize the education and health sectors in a phased manner, preparing National electronic health records, and arranging capacity-building workshops for the professionals.
The report notes that in recent years, there has been tremendous development in Digital Financial Services. However, Pakistan is still a cash-based economy with less than 5% merchants accepting digital payments. Besides promoting digital mode of payments, the government also needs to encourage international e-commerce companies to set up regional offices in Pakistan. Indonesia worked on similar lines and now the e-commerce market size is worth $30 billion which is expected to reach $54 billion by 2025 and supports 26 million jobs directly and indirectly.
Digitization can bring a lot of efficiency to government services, boost productivity and help improve ease of doing business (EODB). Philippines can be a good example where public service delivery was digitized under the E-Government Master Plan (EGMP) which helped the country, ranked 95th position in EODB 2020 rating, registering an improvement of 29 notches. Our government should take advantage of modern technologies such as Machine Learning, Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence to improve competence in public departments, document the economy and increase the tax revenues.
The President, Dr Arif Alvi, appreciated that OICCI took the lead to present recommendations to digitize the economy.