Information Technology Gets A Boost
Dr. Attaur Rehman, the Federal Minister for Science and Technology, has been pushing forward a policy of investment in information technology (IT). Many readers may be aware of how India has leveraged its advantages in this sphere into a vibrant export industry centered around the southern Indian cities of Bangalore and Madras. The Indian Institute of Technologies has turned out large volumes of world class IT workers, and although many have come to the US on H1-B visas, many more are still in India and are moving India forward in this vital arena. India now exports almost 3 billion dollars worth of software per year, and several Indian technology companies are listed on the New York or London Stock Exchanges.
Pakistan has sadly lagged behind India, and much more so than the size difference between the two countries would warrant. The main deficiency has been adequate educational facilities as Pakistan does not have the capacity to train as many software and electrical engineers as India has done. Political instability and concern over the safety of investment has kept American IT companies from setting up large subsidiaries in Pakistan. While educated Pakistanis have good command of English, this natural advantage has not been capitalized on the way India has managed to.
Although it is later than many of us would like to have seen, it appears that the government recognizes the problem and is trying to act on it. For the next five years, there will be no income tax on software companies. Internet access has been greatly expanded to all the major cities and smaller towns. A significant number of villages can theoretically go online, but the limiting factor is of course the cost of the computers and the need for literacy.
The cost of bandwidth has dropped, which should encourage business use of the Internet. Dr. Rehman recently noted that per second bandwidth charges are now down to 3,000 dollars per megabit as compared to 100,000 dollars per megabit before he was put in charge. Many Pakistani-Americans have been strong proponents of reducing these charges as much as possible, and their pressure may have had some role in bringing about these reductions.
The national budget for IT has also increased sharply, with a claimed increase of 5000%. This is off a very low base, so the total dollar value is still not as large as the percent increase would make one think. Much of this spending is to go toward education, which will allow a large pool of IT workers to become available. The key will be having an open enough economy that these workers can find employment or become entrepreneurs. Pakistan must create a stable and reliable investment climate in order to attract significant interest from companies like IBM or Microsoft.
The role of IT should not however be exaggerated. When Bill Gates, the Chairman of Microsoft and the richest man in the world, was asked what information technology could do to help the poor in the Third World, his reply was “not much”. Gates made the point that the most important thing these people need are the basics: clean water, basic literacy, adequate nutrition, and then perhaps electricity. This is why his well-funded charitable foundation is making big investments in providing children’s vaccines and research on malaria rather than wiring up poor villages to the Internet.
IT by itself will not change Pakistan into a modern developed country. It is an important piece, but remains secondary to a government that is committed to providing “the basics” to its people. As long as Pakistani children do not go to school, as long as their mothers suffer iron deficiency during their pregnancies, as long as malaria and tuberculosis needlessly ravage the citizens, as long as babies die from diarrhea due to contaminated water, the state has failed in discharging its most fundamental responsibility.
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