$50 Million IT Park approved for construction in Islamabad

Islamabad: On Tuesday, The Executive Committee of National Economic Council (ECNEC) approved the first state of the art Information Technology (IT) Park of the country in Islamabad.

The Korean Exim Bank has agreed to fund the establishment of the first Technology Park in Pakistan to promote Information Technology and Telecom sector along with the cost of $50 million, announced State Minister for IT and Telecom, adding that Exim Bank will provide soft loan for the establishment of IT Park.

Minister said this while addressing a function after attending the ECNEC meeting organized on Tuesday.

Furthermore, he said that work on the IT Parks in Lahore and Karachi will be started soon.

Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) has leased approximately 45 acres of land in Chak Shahzad, Islamabad for the construction of state of the art IT Park.

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In addition to providing the office space to IT companies, IT Parks are necessary for making a platform for information exchange and relation between academia, industry as well as the government.

IT Parks not only prove to be perfect research and development centers however also offer enormous boost to national economy; the proven examples include IT parks in India, China and in South Korea as well.

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Scope and Salient Features of Proposed IT Park

·         Stage-I: the establishments of buildings having almost 1, 000, 00-1, 500,000 square feet of covered area on 15 acres of land

·         Almost 120-150 Information Technologies companies will be hosted at first.

·         Infrastructure development as well as establishment cost Rs 10.7 billion

·         Broad band connectivity, power backup, transportation, data centers etc

·         Facility supervision, legal and financial services, business generation and entrepreneurship development abilities, international technology relations along with the large companies

The common facilities like research and development centers, application development laboratories, incubator facilities as well as entrepreneurship services, auditorium and virtual association classrooms for brainstorming on technology trends, future possibilities and networking.

A loan agreement between the Government of Pakistan and Exim Bank for the project is expected to be signed soon.