Pakistani gov't to cooperate with Huawei to train officials on digitalization

The Pakistani government will cooperate with Chinese hi-tech giant Huawei to train over 1,000 officials, facilitating the digitalization of government organizations to enhance the efficiency of work and service delivery, the president's office of Pakistan said on Monday.

Pakistani President Arif Alvi had a meeting with a delegation of Huawei, led by Vice President of Huawei Middle East Region Li Xiangyu, on Monday, the president's office said in a statement.

Alvi asked the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication to develop an action plan and set timelines for launching training programs for the government employees in fields like artificial intelligence, cloud technology and big data, according to the statement.

The Pakistani president urged the ministry to come up with more innovative ideas and enhance collaboration with Huawei for early realization of the Digital Pakistan initiative, it added.

During the meeting, Li said Huawei had contributed to Pakistan's economy by providing 10,000 jobs and paying 120 million U.S. dollar in taxes to the Pakistani government from 2018 to 2020, besides spending 6 million U.S. dollars in supporting disaster-relief efforts of the government.

Li said Huawei had also helped foster Pakistan's information and communication technology talents by providing 10,000 certifications till 2020, according to the statement.