Mobile phone manufacturing giant Samsung has started producing cellphones in Pakistan, raising hopes of both the industry as well as the leadership that the move would help improve the country’s trade imbalance, at least in the cellphones industry, in the near future.
The development was disclosed by Samsung’s top management on Tuesday when a senators’ delegation visited the production unit. The Senate’s Standing Committee on Industries and Production visited the production site to get a briefing on the emerging new sector and challenges ahead for the mobile manufacturing industry in Pakistan.
“We were informed that Samsung has formally started its production,” Faisal Subzwari, chairman of the Senate’s Standing Committee on Industries and Production, told media.
Subzwari led the delegation during the visit. The senators also visited an auto manufacturing plant and met with Export Processing Zone’s management.
“It’s really good to know that the company has started production within a short span of four months,” he added. “We visited the production facility which was designed on modern lines and obviously the local manpower, support of local industry and conducive environment provided by the government led to such achievement.”
The country still needs to move from assembling cellphones to localization of the industry, believes Subzwari.
Local cellphone manufacturing data
The local cellphone has production in Pakistan witnessed vigorous growth during the first 10 months of the current year, with the production of phones almost doubling to 18.87 million. However, it is still far less than the import of mobile phones, which stood at 45 million, according to the data shared by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).
During the first four months of the fiscal year 2021-22, mobile phone imports stood grew 15.54% year over year to $644.673 million as compared to $557.961 million during the same period of last year, the PTA data revealed.
Starting with the production of around 250,000 to 300,000 mobile phones, Samsung aims to manufacture around three million sets annually, according to an official from Samsung’s partner company Lucky Group in Pakistan.