Comment by Riaz Haq on December 25, 2018 at 8:01am

#Alibaba's #Alipay's entry to tap great potential of #Pakistan #ecommerce market. US$184 million investment to expedite mass adoption of digital #payments in Pakistan. #Internet penetration rising with estimated 60 million subscribers of 3G and 4G. https://on.china.cn/2EO9fAc

Alipay, a subsidiary of Hangzhou-based Ant Financial, has been cleared by the Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) to acquire a 45 percent stake in Pakistan's Telenor Microfinance Bank.

The investment of over US$184 million will expedite widespread adoption of digital payments in Pakistan. With internet penetration continuously on the rise, there are an estimated 60 million subscribers of 3G and 4G in the country that can become potential users of the service.

Several mobile payment services are presently operating in Pakistan. Primarily, these have been offered by telecom operators with a large number of cellular subscribers. However, limited international application has kept the penetration rate of the payment portals relatively low. Entry of Alipay, the world's largest mobile payment platform, will intensify competition higher, improve the quality of service and reinvigorate the entire landscape of the industry.

Pakistan's growing young population makes it suitable for embracing cashless payments on a large scale. People under the age of 30 form 64 percent of the population who are always the most likely to take up any new technology. On top of that, high cellular phone use will be a facilitative factor, since the mobile-first strategy for internet-based businesses is very valid in Pakistan. 

Commencement of Alipay's operations in Pakistan will also provide a major push to e-commerce. eBay CEO Devin Wenig recently identified emerging economies like Pakistan as the fastest growing e-commerce hubs of the world. The trend is spreading like wildfire across the country with new online shops emerging constantly. A reliable e-payment gateway with worldwide collaborators is all that Pakistanis need to streamline their online transactions.

Alibaba had already acquired Pakistan's leading e-commerce platform Daraz. Utilizing the reach of Alibaba, Pakistani sellers will now be able to connect with global buyer. 

The digital payment boom will be most beneficial for small and medium-sized enterprises that form the backbone of the national economy. Many of these businesses face difficulties in financial transactions due to being located in rural areas. Alipay might prefer to focus on them as the Pakistani government wants to reduce their business costs and difficulties.

Across the border in China, a new policy is on the cards to increase e-commerce purchases from overseas. Around 63 additional categories are being added to a product list of what can be imported duty-free through online platforms. Moreover, 22 cities, such as Beijing, Nanjing and Shenyang, are also being included in e-commerce pilot zones.

With several food items in the revised e-commerce import list, there is much potential for Pakistani farm produce. Fruits like mango and the mandarin hybrid kinnow can gain extended reach in the Chinese food market and the recent push to increase meat and poultry production could further boost Pakistan's exports.

The targeted online shoppers in China are increasingly focusing on foreign brands. Large businesses and premium brands from Pakistan can reach out to these buyers through Tmall Global – another Alibaba operated e-commerce platform allowing Chinese consumers to purchase products from abroad. Pakistan's small to medium businesses might not have the logistic prerequisites for this platform, but international-standard large companies certainly can.

Ant Financial is coming to Pakistan at a time when trade between Pakistan and China is touching new heights through the flagship project of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) known as China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 25, 2018 at 9:45am

How Chinese companies are planning a global fintech coup
Jayadevan PK Shadma Shaikh December 11, 2018 


https://factordaily.com/chinese-fintech-goes-global/

A company document that FactorDaily reviewed lists eight major mobile wallet players in South and Southeast Asia among Ant Financial’s investee companies. These are Easypaisa in Pakistan, BCash in Bangladesh, TouchnGo in Malaysia, Kakaopay in South Korea, GCash in the Philippines, Ascend in Thailand and Emtek in Indonesia. And, of course, Paytm in India.

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“Many of these people are either geographically remote, live in rural areas that are not served by banks, or that are not covered by branches and ATMs. The traditional banking services are not adequate or too expensive for these people,” says Konstantin Peric, Deputy Director, Level One Digital Payment Systems, Financial Services for the Poor (FSP) at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

To that end, Peric and a few other partner companies have built MojaLoop, an open-source software that can be used to build national digital payments platforms. In Swahili, Moja means One. Projects that use Moja Loop are underway in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Nigeria in Africa, and in Indonesia, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan in Asia.


---------------------

urugan is the owner of a small cloud kitchen in Shanghai. He speaks fluent Tamil, passable Mandarin, and a bit of English. The 41-year-old small time entrepreneur supplies Indian food to universities and office establishments in the city.

“I do it all on WeChat,” says Murugan, explaining how he runs a WeChat group called Murugan’s Kitchen where he posts a daily menu, takes orders and receives payments. “Most of my expenses are managed through WeChat,” he says. He serves between 100 and 200 customers daily.

If you want to gallivant about the galaxy, the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy recommends getting a towel. But if you ever go to Beijing, a smartphone will do just fine.

Besides the ability to help you with obvious things, what makes the smartphone truly powerful here is that you can pay for everything using the phone. Not just in China’s large cities like Shanghai or football field sized shopping destinations such as China Mall in capital Beijing, but also in small towns and villages and tiny establishments.

Millions of entrepreneurs like Murugan, do business on mega platforms run by Alibaba and WeChat. China’s fintech growth, on the back of these platforms, has been unprecedented. With a record $12.8 trillion in mobile payment transactions in the 10 months to October last year, China even surpassed the United States, at only $49.3 billion during that period.

Mainly two apps – WeChat and Alipay – make all this possible. These apps owned by Chinese internet giants Tencent and Alibaba, respectively, control 93% of the country’s mobile payments market. As China pursued an industrial policy that made it the factory of the world and millions of Chinese came out of poverty, these apps played a big role in making their lives easier in the mainland.

Both Tencent and Alibaba, have reaped economic benefits of this growth. Tencent, which became China’s first company to cross $500 billion in market cap, is now valued at $374 billion. Alibaba has a market cap of $377 billion. Founders of these companies have also become immensely wealthy. Pony Ma, the founder of Tencent, is the world’s 14th richest person with a net worth of over $50 billion. Jack Ma is worth over $34.7 billion. Both are also members of the Communist party in China.

Next, they, along with dozens of hyper-funded upstarts, have designs on the world. They are quietly taking over the global fintech market at a scale that’s unheard of before. “If you said in 2010 that software is eating the world, in 2018, you should say Chinese software is eating the world,” says Nikhil Kumar, a volunteer with Indian software products think-tank iSpirt who was recently in China to learn more about the fintech ecosystem there.

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 27, 2018 at 10:17am

Pakistan’s digital revolution is happening faster than you think

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/11/pakistan-s-digital-revolutio...

The digital power of China’s Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) is slowly unfolding and shaping into a whole new area of opportunity.

When the BRI took global centre stage in 2013, most conversations revolved around traditional infrastructure: building roads, railways, power sources and linking borders. However, the digital awakening that BRI brings, and the associated development of human capital and innovation, is much more powerful.

The global map is being altered at a much faster rate than anticipated due to the disruption created by digital infrastructure, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and blockchain. Further digital and technological disruption is now set to mend fractures in society – leading to improved living conditions and enhanced economic empowerment.

This disruption has given new life to e-commerce and the start-up scene in BRI countries. In light of the Global Competitiveness Index 4.0, it is extremely important that economies grow in all areas, overcoming challenges and making investment in human capital and innovation. Resilience and agility are key.

Looking at the South Asian region, some of the traditional deterrents to growth have been inadequate transport facilities, patchy power supplies and lack of financial inclusion. As we have seen in the past, industrial revolutions take their time to reach developing countries but the Fourth Industrial Revolution has been quick to reach all corners of the world.

Billions of dollars of investment are bridging the infrastructure and power supply gap while improving technology – the goal is to look past the problems that have hindered the road to progress in countries along the BRI.

The flagship project of the BRI, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is a major collaboration between China and Pakistan, has been rapidly progressing and the impact of the project can be seen in the lives of Pakistani people, as reflected in an improving human development index.

Pakistan, which is emerging from many years of the war on terror, is now on a decent path to progress, with economic growth of 5.8% and improved investor confidence. At the World Economic Forum in 2017, Ebay’s chief executive, Devin Wenig, highlighted Pakistan as one of the fastest growing e-commerce markets in the world. In 2018, Alibaba bought Pakistan’s largest e-commerce platform, Dar....

Growth is being accelerated by other major investments in power and connectivity infrastructure, technology and digital infrastructure. Ant Financial Services, China’s biggest online payment service provider, recently bought a 45% stake in Telenor Microfinance Bank, in a deal that valued the Pakistani bank at $410 million.

Irfan Wahab, chief executive of Telenor Pakistan, called the deal a “game changer”; while Eric Jing, chief executive of Ant Financial, said it would provide “inclusive financial services in a transparent, safe, low-cost and efficient way to a largely unbanked and underbanked population in Pakistan”.

This kind of investment will benefit from the significant demographic dividend in Pakistan, targeting the largely unbanked young population, and providing not only financial inclusion but also a base on which to build digital businesses.

What the country needs now is to improve its position on the innovation and financial inclusion indices, currently at 89 and 75 respectively, on the World Economic Forum’s Competitiveness Index 2018.

Image: World Economic Forum

CPEC is creating the atmosphere for investments like this, which improve connectivity with infrastructure and digital advances. The prospects for getting more benefits out of the project have improved further with the change of government in Pakistan. By providing more transparency in CPEC deals, the government of Pakistan is ensuring a safe investment that will not lead the country into danger.

It has been observed that populations in countries with large digital and technological divides are fast adopters of technology. China is at the forefront of developing future technologies – artificial intelligence, robotics, cyber and space technologies – making it a promising partner for countries along the BRI.

This demonstrates the opportunity presented by the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which can uplift people by merging the physical, digital and biological worlds to create a better quality of life and "harnessing and converging technologies in order to create an inclusive, human-centred future".

The underlying concern for stakeholders in Pakistan and the rest of the region is to improve skills and create a future-ready workforce with an understanding of digital media and knowledge about entrepreneurship.

The rapid completion of CPEC projects and the use of digital technology in the process is disrupting the economy and the lives of people at the same time. The question is whether Pakistan’s leadership will choose to embrace these technologies and take advantage of the biggest project on the road to progress. The future is full of opportunities and promise.

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 9, 2019 at 5:13pm

Can Pakistan Ride the New Tech Wave?
Feb 8, 2019 ASAD JAMAL

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/pakistan-technology-st...

Technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship are the key ingredients for economic success in the twenty-first century, as the US and China are demonstrating. If Pakistan can also realize its huge untapped potential in these fields, the result could be a more dynamic country that is better placed to solve many of its other problems.

I soon learned that in the new Internet world, these obstacles were perfectly normal and surmountable by visionary, passionate entrepreneurs with big dreams and ideas. Consequently, my firm went ahead and invested in Robin’s vision. Within five years of that first meeting, Baidu went from little more than an idea to being the leader in China’s Internet search industry, leaving Google and Yahoo far behind. Today, it is one of China’s top three Internet companies, forming the so-called BAT triumvirate along with Alibaba and Tencent. Robin himself is now the Larry Page (or Bill Gates) of China, with a net worth of over $10 billion.

Baidu’s story is similar to that of many other successful tech firms. Like Alibaba, Apple, Google, and Facebook, the company was driven by young founders rather than older business tycoons. In addition, Baidu initially relied on venture capital for equity funding, avoiding the conventional bank debt that would have been a kiss of death for a young start-up. Like its successful US peers, Baidu posed a radical and disruptive challenge to incumbent market leaders. Finally, Baidu showed that good ideas can grow at an exponential pace, as its market share rose from zero to market leadership in five years.

Since then, the pace of technological innovation has accelerated further, with the computing and Internet revolution morphing into a new one powered by artificial intelligence, nanotech-biotech, and cyber-physical systems. Here, too, the opportunities for visionary entrepreneurs are huge. And here, too, the global leaders are the US and China, with the latter continuing its remarkable recent tech development.


At present, Pakistan’s economy is focused on traditional industrial sectors, agriculture, textiles, fertilizer, and cement, leaving it trapped somewhere between the first and second industrial revolutions. The combined market value of all 559 companies listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange is about $60 billion, equivalent to that of a single top-100 technology company.

To break its cycle of poverty, Pakistan must create conditions enabling its broad participation in the technology revolution. Only through radical reform can the country leapfrog to the AI-led Fourth Industrial Revolution of today. To achieve this, Pakistan must recognize that its young people are its most precious resource. It should educate and empower them, and cultivate their success, particularly in science and technology. If they succeed, Pakistan succeeds.

The good news for Pakistan and other countries in a similar position is that tech start-ups require far fewer resources than traditional large-scale industrial firms. Whereas the latter typically need hundreds of millions of dollars in capital, plant and machinery, and bank loans, tech companies need only a small team of smart people, computers, modest funding, and mentorship. Young Pakistani entrepreneurs are just as well placed as their Chinese counterparts were two decades ago: they need big ideas and encouragement to build on them.

Here, of course, the provision of venture capital is essential. Pakistan should therefore establish a national venture capital fund to promote technology entrepreneurship. Moreover, China’s rise as an economic and technology leader gives Pakistan a unique opportunity to learn from its neighbor and collaborate with it in education, science, and technology. And Pakistan should leverage its historical ties with US and British universities in these areas.

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 9, 2019 at 8:46pm

Can Pakistan Ride the New Tech Wave?
Feb 8, 2019 ASAD JAMAL

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/pakistan-technology-st...

Technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship are the key ingredients for economic success in the twenty-first century, as the US and China are demonstrating. If Pakistan can also realize its huge untapped potential in these fields, the result could be a more dynamic country that is better placed to solve many of its other problems.

I soon learned that in the new Internet world, these obstacles were perfectly normal and surmountable by visionary, passionate entrepreneurs with big dreams and ideas. Consequently, my firm went ahead and invested in Robin’s vision. Within five years of that first meeting, Baidu went from little more than an idea to being the leader in China’s Internet search industry, leaving Google and Yahoo far behind. Today, it is one of China’s top three Internet companies, forming the so-called BAT triumvirate along with Alibaba and Tencent. Robin himself is now the Larry Page (or Bill Gates) of China, with a net worth of over $10 billion.

Baidu’s story is similar to that of many other successful tech firms. Like Alibaba, Apple, Google, and Facebook, the company was driven by young founders rather than older business tycoons. In addition, Baidu initially relied on venture capital for equity funding, avoiding the conventional bank debt that would have been a kiss of death for a young start-up. Like its successful US peers, Baidu posed a radical and disruptive challenge to incumbent market leaders. Finally, Baidu showed that good ideas can grow at an exponential pace, as its market share rose from zero to market leadership in five years.

Since then, the pace of technological innovation has accelerated further, with the computing and Internet revolution morphing into a new one powered by artificial intelligence, nanotech-biotech, and cyber-physical systems. Here, too, the opportunities for visionary entrepreneurs are huge. And here, too, the global leaders are the US and China, with the latter continuing its remarkable recent tech development.

At present, Pakistan’s economy is focused on traditional industrial sectors, agriculture, textiles, fertilizer, and cement, leaving it trapped somewhere between the first and second industrial revolutions. The combined market value of all 559 companies listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange is about $60 billion, equivalent to that of a single top-100 technology company.

To break its cycle of poverty, Pakistan must create conditions enabling its broad participation in the technology revolution. Only through radical reform can the country leapfrog to the AI-led Fourth Industrial Revolution of today. To achieve this, Pakistan must recognize that its young people are its most precious resource. It should educate and empower them, and cultivate their success, particularly in science and technology. If they succeed, Pakistan succeeds.

The good news for Pakistan and other countries in a similar position is that tech start-ups require far fewer resources than traditional large-scale industrial firms. Whereas the latter typically need hundreds of millions of dollars in capital, plant and machinery, and bank loans, tech companies need only a small team of smart people, computers, modest funding, and mentorship. Young Pakistani entrepreneurs are just as well placed as their Chinese counterparts were two decades ago: they need big ideas and encouragement to build on them.

Here, of course, the provision of venture capital is essential. Pakistan should therefore establish a national venture capital fund to promote technology entrepreneurship. Moreover, China’s rise as an economic and technology leader gives Pakistan a unique opportunity to learn from its neighbor and collaborate with it in education, science, and technology. And Pakistan should leverage its historical ties with US and British universities in these areas.

Here's an Islamabad speech by Asad Jamal: https://youtu.be/OKmtptJyvEo

Comment by Riaz Haq on April 30, 2019 at 5:10pm

SBP quarterly report: ICT informal exports higher than formal exports

https://fp.brecorder.com/2019/01/20190131443658/

Pakistan's informal exports of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) are probably much higher than formal exports. Official ICT exports of Pakistan touched $ 1 billion for the first time ever in FY18, however as per industry experts estimates the total size of Pakistan's ICT exports is around $ 2.5 billion. Of these exports, registered firms using formal banking channels to collect export receipts account for around $ 1 billion. However, roughly $ 1 billion is attributed to Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) exports in the grey market and the remaining $ 0.5 billion is accounted for by freelancers in the Information Technology (IT) and IT-enabled services (ITES) space that serve international clients.

State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), in its first quarterly report "The State of Pakistan's Economy" for FY19, has added an special section titled "Performance of ICT Exports of Pakistan". This section analyzes in detail the dynamics of ICT exports, and highlights the challenges faced by the firms and individuals in increasing their share in the growing business process management (BPM) and micro-works global market.

According to the report, while the major stakeholders including Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB), associations, and industry analysts provide different estimated figures pertaining to the undocumented exports, a common narrative prevails when it comes to reasons behind the under-representation of receipts in the official statistics.

First, the absence of PayPal is a major concern. PayPal is the most widely used payment method across the globe, and relatively more convenient, cheap and safe. Therefore, a number of ICT and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) firms prefer to receive their revenues using money transfer organizations like Western Union, with some even preferring to have their revenues deposited in banks outside Pakistan to avoid the associated transfer costs. In the case of former, the export receipts reflect as workers' remittances, whereas in case of latter, these earnings remain unrecorded altogether, the report mentioned.

Secondly, the report said that anecdotal evidence also suggests that some firms and individuals themselves bypass proper documentation in order to either stay under the radar of tax authorities, or avoid the hassle of filling out SBP's Form 'R' (considered both cumbersome and redundant). Furthermore, most firms simply opt out of negligence and lack of awareness about the proper export procedures.

The SBP said that while Pakistanis have begun to figure prominently in electronic freelancing lately, it was the sharp increase in consultancy services provided by the country's ICT firms that has dominated the export trend over the last couple of years. As per the official statistics, computer services have generated most of the export ($726 million in FY18) momentum in recent years. However, while software exports have displayed a more-or-less stagnant export performance over the previous 5 years, a steady growth has been observed in the export of consultancy services.

As for the sector's composition, export revenues of only 30 percent of the total 3,228 ICT exporting entities came from computer software during FY18; the rest had either limited or no product orientation, as they generated revenues only from low value added services e.g. call centers. However, from FX generation perspective, this dominance of low value-added services is not favorable.

Comment by Riaz Haq on May 29, 2019 at 6:58pm

Pakistan’s exports of telecommunication, computer and information services have increased to $708.93 million in the first eight months of the current fiscal year.

https://profit.pakistantoday.com.pk/2019/05/05/telecom-info-service...

The earning made through these exports during the corresponding period of fiscal year 2017-18 was $520.04 million, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported.

According to data issued by the PBS, the telecommunication services exports were recorded at $65.596 million during the current year against $61.533 million last year, showing decline of 17.12 per cent.

Among the telecommunication services exports, the exports of call center services increased by 6.6 percent.

Comment by Riaz Haq on June 20, 2019 at 9:39am

#Pakistan (8.5%) is the world's 4th largest supplier of #online #labor after #India (24%) , #Bangladesh (16%) and the #UnitedStates (12%). https://ilabour.oii.ox.ac.uk/where-are-online-workers-located-the-i...

https://twitter.com/haqsmusings/status/1141745036490498048

The Internet has created a global market for digitally delivered freelance work, which is currently growing rapidly. Our new Online Labour Index worker supplement reveals what skills different countries are bringing to the market. For instance, the top occupational category in the United States is writing and translation, while in the Indian subcontinent it is software development and technology. Europe’s various regions focus on different specialisms. The map is based on near-real time data from four of the largest platforms connecting buyers and sellers of online freelance work.

The largest overall supplier of online labour according to the data is the traditional outsourcing destination India, which is home to 24 percent of the workers observed. India is followed by Bangladesh (16 %) and United States (12 %). Different countries’ workers focus on different occupations. The software development and technology category is dominated by workers from the Indian subcontinent, who command a 55 percent market share. The professional services category, which consists of services such as accounting, legal services, and business consulting, is led by UK-based workers with a 22 percent market share.

Comment by Riaz Haq on July 18, 2019 at 7:27am

#Huawei plans $170 million #investment in #Pakistan. Will invest around $100 million this year. Huawei will also set up a regional headquarters in Islamabad at a cost of $55 million that will create job opportunities for young engineers in Pakistan.” #tech https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/499835-huawei-plans-170mln-investm...

Chinese multinational technology company Huawei Group on Wednesday unveiled $170 million investment plan to set up its regional headquarters and upgrade technical support centre in Pakistan.


Huwaei Group Vice President Mark Xueman said Pakistan is a strategic market for the company. “The company will invest around $100 million in the country this year,” Xueman said during a meeting with Minister for Planning, Development and Reform Khusro Bakhtyar.

“Huawei will also set up a regional headquarters in Islamabad at a cost of $55 million that will create job opportunities for young engineers in Pakistan.” Huawei’s official further informed the minister that the company would also invest $15 million more in its technical support centre and it will also hire more workforce for the centre, taking the number of its staff to 800 from 600 this year.

“Huawei is eager to initiate more projects in Pakistan on grant funding from Chinese government,” Xueman said. Huwaei Group Vice President was leading a delegation of businessmen. Minister Bakhtyar assured the delegation of all cooperation in future joint ventures.

Planning minister, while appreciating the company’s continued engagement in the country, said the leading technological company could support the development and upgrading of information and technology sector in Pakistan.

Chinese government initiated $62 billion worth of infrastructure development projects under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) framework. Most of the projects pertain to energy sector. While the first stage of CPEC has almost completed, the next stage focuses industrial developments.

Pakistan is fast-growing telecom market with subscribers of mobile phones having crossed the 160 million mark compared with the country’s population of 210 million. Of total subscribers, 68 million use 3G/4G. There are 70 million broadband subscribers.

The country imports millions of dollars of mobile phones to meet the local requirements with manufacturing and assembling of handheld devices not present in the country. Planning minister said Huawei has 25 percent share in the country’s mobile industry and is also the top taxing paying Chinese company in the country.

The minister appreciated Huawei’s engagement with the Higher Education Commission for smart schools project, providing latest information and communications technology equipment.

Bakhtyar underlined a need of exploring new business models for future projects and joint ventures in the country. “Huawei can contribute to the e-governance initiative as well in centralising data to improve efficiency and productivity.”

The minister said Huawei could support IT start-up projects to benefit the youth in this important sector. Secretary Planning Zafar Hasan, Project Director CPEC Hassan Daud and senior officials of the ministry were also present at the meeting.

Comment by Riaz Haq on August 29, 2019 at 10:02am

#Pakistani Home Appliance Makers Begin #Exports to #EU and #African Countries

https://propakistani.pk/2019/08/27/pakistani-home-appliance-makers-...

Pakistani electronics home appliances brand, Dawlance has become the first-ever company to begin exports of its products to European and African countries.

The company has upgraded its assembly plants with an investment of $60 million over the past three years to meet the high standards of different foreign markets.

This was stated by Dawlance Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Umar Ahsan Khan while talking to ProPakistani after the inauguration of a new assembly line at National Highway Karachi.

Umar Ashan Khan said that they have added two assembly lines of washing machines and water dispensers in its factory. The main objective is to export these appliances in different markets along with meeting the demand of the local market.

The company has obtained a special certification for manufacturing water dispensers to meet EU standards. These products are being exported to EU countries through Turkey. So far, the first consignment of 5,000 dispensers has been exported to Turkey and nearly 5,000 units will be sold in the international market by the end of this year. Whereas our other products, such as washing machines, are being exported to Africa and Middle Eastern Countries, he added.

Mr. Khan continued that Dawlance washing machines are in high demand in Africa because they are more affordable and energy-efficient.

Low Voltage Appliances To Be Introduced
In order to meet the demands of the significant population living off-grid, Dawlance is the first company to start production of low voltage appliances including washing machines, refrigerators, and air-conditioners in the coming months.

CEO Dawlance said:

Dawlance has planned to introduce DC current washing machines which will be operated on solar panels. This will make a difference in the lives of people living in the rural areas of the country. Due to current economic conditions, the sales of home appliances is declining but we are optimistic that the documented economy will bounce back with certain tax measures. With the government’s tax measures now everyone is being registered in the tax system , which will provide us a level playing field.

Dawlance was established in 1980 by Bashir Dawood. Its first refrigerator assembly plant was established in Hyderabad Sindh. The brand captured a significant share in the local market and ultimately attracted foreign investors’ attention. In 2016, Dawood Bashir sold Dawlance to Istanbul based Arçelik.

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