LONDON, Nov 16 (APP): The World Congress of Overseas Pakistanis (WCOP)(UK) has appreciated the setting up of specialized technology zones terming it as a great initiative of the Government of Pakistan.
“In my view, setting up specialized technology zones is a great initiative. The IT industry demanded Special Technology Zones (STZs) to provide opportunities for medium and small scale IT enterprises to have less infrastructure cost and overheads to enable them to do their business and earn exports and remittances for the country”, Executive Director of WCOP Arif Anis told APP here today.
He observed that this has hugely potential to bring the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Pakistan.
Arif Anis said “Prime Minister Imran Khan is himself very interested in seeing this succeed and he will issue instructions and the Planning Commission would have to find
ways to get it through”.
The Executive Director of WCOP further said that such dedicated clusters of land in major cities with specialized infrastructure, like plug and play buildings, for IT companies will become valuable assets. The STZs, he said have low land rental, less sales and withholding tax, less utility bill charges, which were all incentives to bring investors and incentives that were necessary for small IT companies to thrive in a low cost environment.
Arif Anis said that the Information Technology (IT) companies get projects that require plug and play and power backups.
“This is the sort of infrastructure that is necessary for its growth. High rise technology parks do not work it for the IT industry because these buildings have high rentals which increases cost of doing business”,Arif Anis remarked.
