ISLAMABAD: The country’s telecom sector attracted $494.4 million as foreign direct investment (FDI), during 2004-05, which was 32 percent of the total foreign investment the country got last fiscal.

“This sector of the economy remained one of the major contributors in revenues with Rs 171 billion last year,” Major General (Rtd) Shahzada Alam Malik, chairman Pakistan Telecommuni-cation Authority (PTA) told APP.

He said government collected Rs 20.5 billion as general sales tax (GST) and central excise duty (CED) during 2004-05 other Rs 27.9 billion, the PTA deposited to the exchequer in 2005. He said under deregulation policy Universal Service Obligation Fund had been created to develop telecom facilities in rural areas, which would be utilised in consultation with the provincial governments.

The PTA chife said wireless local loop (WLL) had around 32,3931 subscribers and service was presently available in more than 155 cities across the country. He said the PTA had been conducting forums to interact with telecom consumers, service providers, provincial governments and telecom experts to further improve services. He said till June 2005, PTA had issued 275 ISP licenses and there were over 2 million Internet subscribers across the country with around 1,900 cities having Internet accessibility.