ISLAMABAD: Canadian High Commissioner to Pakistan Heather Cruden on Wednesday called on State Minister for IT and Telecom Anusha Rahman at Ministry of IT and discussed matters of mutual interest with special reference to enhance bilateral relations between the two countries. The minister apprised the Canadian envoy regarding ongoing projects of the ministry in the field of information technology, especially the establishment of state-of-the-art technology park which is being built with the assistance of Korean Exim Bank. Anusha Rahman informed the Canadian high commissioner that through the universal services Fund Co – more than 4,000-kilometer optic fiber has been laid in the difficult terrain of Balochistan and rural telephony projects have been initiated to provide telecommunication connectivity in far flung areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan. While talking about the local manufacturing, the minister said, “Our government has offered special incentives to promote local manufacturing of smart phones. Haier Group of companies has recently got a NOC to establish the first smart mobile phones assembling plant. Canadian telecom manufacturing companies can also invest in our rapidly growing sector and could get benefit from these special incentives.” The minister invited Canadian companies to look at the software development sector of Pakistan having IT software exports touching around $2 billion. Anusha said, “It is our utmost desire to create an eco-system for ICT in Pakistan so that we could materialise our dream of accelerated digitisation. Canadian High Commissioner appreciated the vision of the Pakistan government and hailed the efforts of the Ministry of IT and telecom for the nourishment of the IT sector. Both sides agreed to enhance the mutual cooperation in arena of IT and telecom to explore new avenues of mutual cooperation in near future.