ISLAMABAD: After making its first export shipment nearly 14 months ago, Pakistan is likely to lose its second export order for smartphones mainly due to policy issues that have hampered the country’s export capacity, industry experts say. has stopped and also restricted the entry of international players.
In a letter to the Ministry of IT and Telecom, the mobile manufacturers have pointed out that they have not been able to meet the local demand due to restrictions on opening letters of credit (LC).
The first export shipment of 4G smartphones was made in August last year after securing an order for 120,000 units from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), but the same company maintains that the import order by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Sanctions have hurt him to the extreme. Targeting is difficult.
“We were all very happy when the first batch of 5,500 mobile sets with the ‘Made in Pakistan’ tag was shipped to the UAE in August 2021, but things haven’t been good for the mobile manufacturing sector in the last 14 months,” he said. Zeeshan Mian Noor, CEO of Invi Telecom.
He said that local mobile phone manufacturers could not get export orders since August last year due to conflicting policies.
“We were promised more incentives and five per cent export rebate but these assurances have not been fulfilled by the government,” said Mr Noor.
He added that a new order has been secured but its timely fulfillment seems difficult as the State Bank has not allowed the import of key components used for the mobile set.
He added that the local mobile industry produces mid-range sets and can penetrate the markets of the Middle East, Africa, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan etc. but there is a need for supportive export policies.
Mr. Noor, who is also the deputy chairman of the Pakistan Mobile Phone Manufacturers Association, said an LC of $83 million was allowed against a demand of $150 million.
He added that when the domestic requirements were not being met, how could we export key components without importing them.
Important components like cameras, motherboards, technical equipment etc. are imported from China, Korea, Japan, USA and some European countries.
At the same time, a similar situation was being faced by Xiaomi’s local partner AirLink, the third largest player in the global mobile market.
Muzaffar Hayat Paracha, CEO of AirLink Communications, said, “A sum of $674m has been seized by Indian authorities from Xiaomi India, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Xiaomi in China, for tax evasion and other financial fraud. on the charge of”.
“They want to reduce their presence in India and shift the export business to Pakistan, but we can’t do anything because there were policy issues in Pakistan,” Mr Pracha said.
