 Welcome to the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference 2018 in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates where I'm very pleased to be joining the studio this morning by Mr Ahmed Shamim Pisada, who is the director of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority. Thank you very much for inviting me. Thank you and welcome to the studio. Now I'd like to start off by asking a little bit about the fact that there's considerable attention being placed on harnessing the power of information and communication technologies on ICTs as a power for good. As an enabler for good, for development, for the benefit of the people, for families, communities and nations, what's your personal perspective on this? Yeah, as an enabler, yes, but not as an end product. I'm pretty, I'm very much confident that ICT has great role in development and uplifting of the communities and nations. For this, you know, that there are numerous examples. I would start with the, you know, that basic work from where the ICT enabler or ICT starts with the basic telephone with SMS service to the new regime, new era telephone with smartphones, having apps, broadband connectivity. So this, this, this phone is having a great role in, you know, creating the enabling environment for the ICT. You know that word has gone through since centuries. The technological aberration, which termed as industry aberration. The first generation, second generation and third generation industrial revolution has a great impact on human life and social uplifting of the societies. Now we are in, in the technological evolution of fourth generation industrialization, which would totally alter the life, living work style of the people. So ICTs, the word digital would be common in all these revolutions and activities. You know that thousands of people would be connected and similarly billions of devices would be connected. These devices to get people together would have a great role in connectivity in, in ICTs if and multiplying factor is with the emerging technologies like 3D printing, artificial intelligence, internet of things. This kind, you know that with these technologies the ICT and connectivity would have a great power to change the lives of the people. If we go to the global statistics, you know that the IT report says that there were 1991 millions internet connections in 2010 and it is now in 2016 report it is 3385 million subscribers and in the same scenario if you come to the Asia level, so the mobile subscriber were in 2010 97 million and they are now 1675 million subscribers. Furthermore, if we go the 70% of the youth is connected with the, is connected or you can say the online. So these all factors if we combine having a great role in ICTs. In addition I would add some few examples as well that the word bank report says in collaboration with ITU that 10% increase in mobile broadband penetration would raise 1.4% in GDP which is a very key indicator. Similarly the broadband 10% penetration not mobile broadband but overall broadband the GSM report says that increase 0.92% in the GDP. So further if we go if we add 1000 connections, broadband connections in the system it will create directly or indirectly 33 you know the jobs. So that you know that all we link that we will see that how strong is the ICT for connectivity for the lives of the people everything would be related to ICT will be connected and will be the with the inability of the ICTs in the country would have a great role. Now this plenty of potential conferences the first since the world agreed on the sustainable development goals in 2015 perhaps you could provide some examples of how ICTs are helping to drive sustainable development in Pakistan. Pakistani parliament is the first parliament adopted the STGs in the nations development plan. Ministry of planning development and reforms has in collaboration with UNDP created a unit STD unit in the Ministry of Planning. This unit is also collaborating in liaison with the provincial STGs implementation units. Further you know that STGs, ICT development has correlation with the STGs sustainable development that is if you have development in ICT sector there would be development in the STGs as well and that correlation is approximately 89 percent especially the STGs like if we go to the STG3 that health related to health STG4 quality education STG9 infrastructure industrialization innovation. So they are directly linked to the ICTs further if we go to the this one as sustainable development government has recently passed a policy in the approved in the cabinet that is digital Pakistan policy which is a very important policy and it is taking care of all STGs what the UN has given 17 sustainable development goals it caters all of them and there's a plan for the government to you know implement STGs and to monitor. In further there's some I would must say there's a government is sustainable development goals is implementing like government with the help of USF you know a universal service fund eight million subscribers are being provided 3G services and basic telephone services are to 6,000 villages similarly optical fiber has been laid down in 5100 kilometer just to connect 79 counties in the far flung areas to bring them on the national backbone so they would have also the connectivity then government has introduced women and ICT another organization is Ignite this is R&D fund in Pakistan and they have introduced ICT women and girls so they in collaboration with Microsoft there is a program for the ICT women and girls that would be trained would be having certificate from there and then they would be taken on the employability portal so that they would be serving the community in terms of jobs in their terms of their personal lead and to develop the society. I just wanted to ask you about half the world's population are connected to the internet the other half is not what is Pakistan doing to get everyone connected I know that you touched upon this already but perhaps you could just and yes I would this is purely you know that my organization and the role of the authorities the enabler role we are rather than the police so the government has given the policy the new policy in 2015 we have we have implemented the policy immediately some of the issues with this policies three auctions done and in 2014 next generation mobile services licensing were awarded so you know that with this mobile services licensing 3g and 4 services 3g and 4g services are available in the country and they they are playing a great role in the life of the people that so many applications have been developed so many businesses are being you know facilitated with this one further that you know the figures what I would quote is very important under the policy that in 2014 there were only 13 million mobile broadband subscribers but now we have 62 million mobile broadband subscriber to sorry 62 million mobile broadband subscriber out of which 59 million are mobiles there are 151 million mobile phone customers and the tele-density is 75 percent the in terms of e-commerce it has a great load Pakistan e-commerce volume is for 60 to 100 million US dollars and we are anticipating it to 1 billion US dollars by 2020 so the government has Pakistan PTA and statement of Pakistan has created a third party service provider facility to the bank to the operator so that e-transaction can be made on the by the consumers in addition the word joint Alibaba is also taken interest in Pakistan e-commerce and they have signed an MOU with the trade development authority to bring SMEs in the realm of e-commerce so you know this branchless banking banks and mobile operators provide together providing the facilitation to general to the or consumers and consumers can do every kind of you know transaction through this system so with this all ecosystem and what ecosystem you know the country is day by day flourishing with the with with this usage of ICT so connectivity with in Pakistan is very good with the population of 2 to 10 million people 210 million people and 60 percent out of which is the youth so there's a great adoption of technology of the youth in the country let's talk a little bit about anything else that you might like to add in terms of I know that you've obviously beginning your message across here to to participants at the planning potentially conference but is there anything that you would like to add here to the wider audience as well first first of all I would be congratulating the EE government for organization such a good such a big organization and it is very much comfortable for the delegates and for all of the people very well arrangements they have done second the one of the most important thing but what what I would be suggesting to ITU that we may have some code of conduct or some regime for the social media companies or social media organization the reason is that there's a great difference between the environment in the west and east the problems of east are quite different than there is Middle East Eastern world Middle East Arab countries we have a different problems western developed words are the different problem so what I would suggest that this is purely my personal viewpoint and I would say that IGF and WIS WSIS this is should be might or should be bring together so that ITU may have some role in the social media you would say code of conduct that is the my suggestion to ITU I think that's a very difficult work but it's required the time needs it well Mr. Bazzara thank you very much indeed being with us in the studio and we hope to catch up with you again at some stage in the future thank you very much thank you thank you