Govt policies hampering mobile phone exports

After making its first-ever export shipment some 14 months back, Pakistan is likely to lose the second export order for smartphones mainly due to policy issues that have hindered the country’s export potential and restricted entry of global players too, say industry players. In a letter written to the Ministry of IT and Telecom, mobile manufacturers have pointed out that due to the restrictions on the opening of letters of credit (LCs), they were not even able to meet the local demand. The first export consignment of 4G smartphones was made in August last year after securing an order from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for 120,000 units, but the same company maintains that import restrictions by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) have made it extremely difficult to achieve the target. “We were all very happy when the first-ever shipment of 5,500 mobile sets tagged ‘Manufactured in Pakistan’ was sent to the UAE in August 2021, but things have not been good for the mobile manufacturing sector in the past 14 months,” said Inovi Telecom CEO Zeeshan Mian Noor.