Pakistan has finally made all prerequisite regulatory arrangements needed for global tech companies to start their operations in Pakistan, said Anusha Rehman, Minister for State for IT and Telecom, here at a conference organized by GSMA in Islamabad.

Anusha said that Pakistan is now ranked in FATF’s white-list, meaning that Pakistan has now internationally accepted anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing standards in place which were previously not available.

Pakistan, until recently was listed in grey-list of FATF (Financial Action Task Force), which potentially blocked the way of global tech companies, such as PayPal, Amazon etc. in starting their operations in Pakistan.

Pakistan is now ranked in FATF’s white-list, meaning that Pakistan has now internationally accepted anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing standards in place

Anusha further revealed that State Bank of Pakistan is already working with partners for the opening up of payment gateway in Pakistan, after which Government is now working on framework for ecommerce to address consumers rights, dispute resolutions and all sorts of procedural and mechanical challenges of eommerce industry.

Minister said that the working on regulatory framework for ecommerce industry is lead by Ministry of Commerce, while Ministry of IT and State Bank of Pakistan are assisting in the formulation of protocols for ecommerce industry.

Ms. Rehman said that this framework will be formulated with-in next few weeks after which all current issues and challenges of ecommerce industry will be addressed.

She said that soon Pakistan is going to invite global tech companies including PayPal, Amazon and eBay to start their operations in Pakistan.

Ministry of Commerce, assisted by MoIT and SBP, is formulating the framework for ecommerce industry

Ms. Rehman said that her ministry is making all possible efforts, positive measures and incremental steps in every direction to make sure that ICT is used at fullest to contribute towards economic growth of the country and to enhance common man’s lifestyle.

She said that direction has been set, however, a lot is still to be done and all stakeholders should work together in achieving the goal.

She said that we have to become a strategic enabler to become an ecosystem that would spur the economic growth to ultimately make us an knowledge based economy.

Also Read: Pakistani Ecommerce Industry has One Key Flaw That we Must Fix Right Away!