RAWALPINDI: Digital economy in Pakistan has huge potential for creating 2 million jobs and boosting the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) up to the level of $40 billion in next couple of years.
Transformation is required to promote the Information, Communications and Technology sectors to reposition Pakistan in the digital economy. The Rawalpindi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (RCCI) President Saboor Malik in a statement on Saturday urged government of Pakistan to adopt new dimensions of economy as Digital platform has been rapidly growing around the world and country like Pakistan is still far behind on this race.
The federal cabinet had already approved the E-commerce policy for promoting the digital culture and paperless trade to help enhance the trade volume. However digital platform for e payments is the hour of need. More than 66 percent of payments for e-shopping are being made as Cash on Delivery (COD) which does not reflect the true sense of digital platform, he added. RCCI President remarked that Pakistan has huge participation of global mobile market, with over 160 million mobile phone subscribers and around 150 million Internet users.
Digital transactions are increasing rapidly and have already reached 20 per cent of overall transactions in the developed economies. Digitalisation will have a serious impact on jobs transformation, he cautioned.
He suggested that the government must overhaul the whole banking infrastructure and encourage businesses, retailers, petrol pumps, PIA, Railways ticketing, superstores, schools and colleges to introduce payment gateways and banks should offer credit cards to businessmen.
Through the evolution of ‘Digital Economy’, Pakistan can rapidly achieve its economic agenda in all major sectors including trade and E-commerce, education and health for economic growth in the country, he further added.