ISLAMABAD (PRESS RELEASE)
Rolling out a structured process to address major issues and challenges being faced by the IT and Telecom Industries to drive the socio economic agenda of the Government, Minister for Finance, Asad Umar chaired a high level meeting of GoP stakeholders at the Prime Minister’s Office. Focus of the meeting was to discuss impediments and bottlenecks being faced by the Information Technology (IT) sector especially in the digital payments domain and to decide on measures to settle the issues.
The meeting was also attended by Minister for IT & Telecom Dr. Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, Law Minister Dr. Mohammad Farogh Naseem, Secretary (Finance), Secretary (IT), Secretary (Cabinet), Secretary (Privatization), Representative of State Bank of Pakistan and technical experts from Ministry of IT & Telecom. The Finance Minister directed that a team of stakeholders from Ministry of IT & Telecom and State Bank of Pakistan may establish a contact with PayPal with due engagement of Pakistani Ambassador to the US and renowned Pakistani expatriates working in Silicon Valley.
The Finance Minister also directed SBP to review rules/requirements pertaining to Payment System Operators (PSOs) and Payment Service Providers (PSPs) specifically related to threshold for minimum initial capital requirements in order to encourage new entrants to the digital payment providers space and expedite the work on Unified Payment Interface & National Payment Gateway already underway in collaboration with Private sector. To improve official reporting of IT/ITeS export revenues, he further directed State Bank of Pakistan to review the mechanism in place for 30% retention of foreign currency and suggest further facilitative measures in this regard including repatriation of the export remittances for offshore business needs of the IT industry.