The Chairman of National Business Group Pakistan, the President of the Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum, the President of All Karachi Industrial Alliance, the Chairman of the FPCCI Advisory Board, and the President and former provincial minister, Mian Zahid Hussain, said on Monday that restricting the Internet to deal with a few hundred miscreants is a wrong move that is against the national interests. Slow Internet is damaging hundreds of IT companies, banks, e-commerce companies, and millions of freelancer youth, and the country is losing a lot of foreign exchange, he said.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that the government’s political parties object to this decision, so it should be withdrawn and unnecessary restrictions on the Internet lifted.
Talking to the business community, the veteran business leader said that, like many other things worldwide, the Internet is also misused. However, in different countries, criminals are caught, and people are not deprived of important sources of information and income.
He said what is being done needs to be corrected. Taking people offline affects the IT and freelancing sectors, and unemployment is increasing. Policymakers should consider the implications of their decisions before it’s too late.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that long-term loss and instability for temporary political gain is a losing trade because it spreads disillusionment and may increase the flight of capital and talent. In no country do long-term interests prevail over short-term interests. Most of the world’s nations are busy strengthening the digital infrastructure and connecting their citizens to it.
However, in Pakistan, this link is being weakened due to the malice of some individuals, which is sad and harmful to the country’s economy.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that Internet services increase economic growth, trade, income, and employment, and their importance cannot be denied in the current era.
He noted that a single-minute interruption results in a heavy price. Mian Zahid Hussain said that we try to compete with India in everything. The heads of the world’s most famous tech companies are Indians. Millions of people are connected to this sector, and software exports are more than two hundred billion dollars, increasing further. On the other hand, we are busy ruining our important sector. As a result, our software exports, which are only 3.2 billion dollars, are decreasing instead of increasing.
Mian Zahid Hussain further said that the number of customers who get employment through the Internet is decreasing rapidly. Internet slowness has become a major problem. Trying to send a voice note or a picture or downloading a picture through WhatsApp has also become difficult. Similarly, running many important social media applications has become difficult.
The issue of internet shutdown in Pakistan is not new. It has been shut down on various occasions. Still, this time, due to internet degradation and severe problems in using WhatsApp and other applications, it has become a problem for foreign companies working in Pakistan and individual clients.
It has added to the hardships of those helping themselves and their country, which is unfortunate.
