MM News

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan will visit Haripur on Monday (today) where he is expected to inaugurate Pakistan Digital City Special Technology Zone, the first such initiative in the country.

The prime minister will be accompanied by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Mahmood Khan along with federal and provincial ministers. Pakistan Digital City Haripur is a flagship project of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to provide all facilities to IT industry in one place.

It will be completed at a cost of Rs1.31 billion and is scattered over 86 kanals land. The project aims to benefit allied industries like electronics, software houses, mobile phone industry, technology incubators and computer industry in the province.

Pakistan Digital City Haripur aims to serve as state-of-the-art facility to enable collaborations and innovation amongst academia, research, industry and planners from within the country and abroad. In August 2021, the KP government had approved the ‘Digital City’ project in Haripur.

Last month, Prime Minister Imran Khan had inaugurated Lahore Technopolis, a special technology zone, to create jobs and boost Pakistan’s IT exports. He said the tech industry could help overcome Pakistan’s current account deficit by boosting exports and addressing unemployment if the sector was incentivised and facilitated.

The prime minister said Special Technology Zones (STZs), being developed all across the country, would be home to Science and Technology Parks, manufacturing units, research and development centres of global tech companies and software houses. They would also feature universities, incubators, accelerators and other ecosystem players.