Chinese smartphone giant, Xiaomi plans on setting up a handset manufacturing plant in Pakistan.
Adviser to Prime Minister on Commerce and Investment Abdul Razak Dawood took to Twitter on Tuesday and announced that one of the world’s largest mobile manufacturers Xiaomi has partnered up with Airlink Communications to manufacture smartphones in Pakistan. He viewed this decision as an indicator of success regarding the Make in Pakistan policy.
He added that the production facility will be set up in the Quaid-e-Azam Industrial Estate, Lahore, and will be producing 2.5 to 3 million handsets annually.
Dawood remarked, “The production facility will become functional in January 2022 and it will create 3,000 direct and indirect jobs”.
Tecno Pack Electronics Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Aamir Allawala noted that Pakistan was among the top 10 handset markets in the world. He further added that the Mobile Device Manufacturing Policy 2020 had started showing results.
Allawala pointed out that investment of global mobile brands in the domestic manufacturing infrastructure was almost nil until June 2020 despite a huge domestic market.
He added that the duties and taxes on completely built units (CBU) mobile phones were kept low at the same level as their parts and components. However, the government in July 2020, created a reasonable differential in duties and taxes between CBU and completely knocked down (CKD)/ semi-knocked down (SKD) mobile phones under the mobile device manufacturing policy.
He said that as a result, almost all foreign brands felt encouraged to start local assembly of mobile phones with a plan of indigenization of its parts.
Allawala said, “Currently, Tecno, Infinix, Itel, Oppo, Vivo, Realme, and Nokia are producing smartphones in Pakistan,” He further explained that Samsung would commence production from December 2021 and Xiaomi from early 2022. “By January 2022, 90% of all mobile phones sold in Pakistan will be made in the country”.
As per Allawala, the next step will be localization of parts and boosting smartphone exports. All companies are taking steps towards attaining that.
The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) expert Parvez Iftikhar described Dawood’s announcement as a great development provided that the manufacturer sticks to smartphones only.
Iftikhar added that it would not only generate jobs and other benefits to the economy but also boost 4G penetration in the country, which is a pre-requisite for 5G.
