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New Pakistan-India fibre-optic link

Monday, May 16th, 2005

Another fibre-optic link between India and Pakistan will be setup in the upcoming months running from Lahore, Pakistan to Amritsar, India. The Ministry of IT & Telecom is delegating PTCL to prepare a feasibility report due next month, with another six month following to lay out the network. The agreement could have evolved from an earlier news event reporting India-Pakistan coast guard link-up.

Pakistan’s current (and only international) backbone runs through India via the SeaMeWe-3 undersea fibre-optic cable. The new connection should provide some bandwidth relief. Is there any other route Pakistan can take to create an independent uplink?

Posted in Government, Internet, Telecom | 2 Comments »

Pakistan to start fighter aircraft production in 2007

Wednesday, May 11th, 2005

News sources have revealed that Pakistan will start joint-production of a light weight fighter aircraft with China in the first quarter of 2007. The JF-17 (also here) aircraft is based on the Russian MIG-21. It was designed and prototyped in China at an estimated cost of US$150 million, half of which has been funded by Pakistan. According to the agreement, full production should start at PAC Kamra in 2007 upon initial delivery of 8 aircrafts from China. The project will not only help in upgrading Pakistan’s aging aircraft fleet, but more importantly ‘it will help train the nation’s engineers and mechanics in the art of aircraft making’.

Posted in Defense, Government | 7 Comments »

Pakistan moving toward e-procurement with Korea’s assistance

Thursday, May 5th, 2005

As part of the e-government vision, the government of Pakistan is seeking Korea’s assistance with e-procurement. Currently a feasibility study is proposed for 3 months. The key upside to e-procurement is transparency, competitiveness and managerial efficiency. The World Bank has an interesting report on Korea’s e-procurement model (PDF Format. HTML format here) . From the report: staffing requirements fell from 1058 to 935, procurements increased by one-third to $17.1bn. The e-procurement system managed $20bn in goods and services between Sep 2002 and Sep 2003 with the participation of 25,000 public agencies and 87,000 companies. The four factors from Korea’s experience: strong leadership, nationwide e-government reforms, information and communications infrastructure and comprehensive process reengineering. The toughest of those for Pakistan might be process reengineering. Korea began it’s e-government reforms under President Dae Jung Kim (1998-2002).

This is somewhat contradictory to our previous story: Pakistan ranked second last among ‘e-ready’ nations.

Posted in Government, IT | 1 Comment »

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