{"id":13864,"date":"2025-07-16T21:05:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-16T21:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=13864"},"modified":"2025-07-16T21:05:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-16T21:05:10","slug":"digital-ambition-versus-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=13864","title":{"rendered":"Digital ambition versus reality"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Pakistan&#8217;s digital sector is at a crucial crossroads. Despite notable progress in some areas \u2014\u00a0such as 84% digital retail payments, growth in mobile banking and a vibrant startup ecosystem \u2014\u00a0significant structural issues threaten to derail the project. The situation is fraught with contradictions, as ambitious goals are constrained by inadequate infrastructure, inconsistent policies and stark inequalities.<\/p>\n<p>Infrastructure deficiencies are exemplified by the failure to match the expansion of mobile coverage with an increase in fixed broadband. In fact, fixed broadband penetration is only 1.3%. Pakistan is also falling behind in adopting next-generation connectivity, with delays in the 5G spectrum auction and no recent investment in 3G. This means while most people can easily consume internet-based products, barely anyone can access or use the tools needed to produce software or other innovation \u2014\u00a0our internet structure, by design, can only create legions of TikTokers.<\/p>\n<p>Regulatory challenges, including government firewalls, censorship and prolonged internet shutdowns, undermine the digital ecosystem, bleed local businesses millions of rupees and deter new international investors.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to infrastructure issues, policy inconsistencies and financial missteps hinder growth. The recent federal budget, with confusing and poorly defined withholding and sales taxes on e-commerce, has drawn criticism from banks. Such policies can lead to a new grey economy, where online transactions are taken offline to avoid high taxes. The digital divide along gender and socioeconomic lines is another concern. Mobile phone ownership is 86% for men, but only 53% for women and internet access is 53% for men, but just 33% for women.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, the lack of opportunities in Pakistan drives around 100,000 IT professionals to greener pastures abroad every year. While Islamabad may tout its talent and forward-looking policies, the harsh realities of the market and archaic legal framework need urgent reforms to enable citizens and companies to compete globally.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pakistan&#8217;s digital sector is at a crucial crossroads. Despite notable progress in some areas \u2014\u00a0such as 84% digital retail payments, growth in mobile banking and a vibrant startup ecosystem \u2014\u00a0significant structural issues threaten to derail the project. The situation is fraught with contradictions, as ambitious goals are constrained by inadequate infrastructure, inconsistent policies and stark [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13864\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}