Key points:

• PM Shehbaz Sharif directs early completion of Islamabad Technology Park by year-end, moving up the date from June 2025.
• The Rs 25 billion project, with $70 million from South Korea, will create 10,000 jobs and increase IT exports by $70 million annually.
• The park will host 120 company offices, an incubation center for startups, and Pakistan’s first-ever level 3 data center.
• The Prime Minister aims to replicate similar tech projects nationwide with provincial cooperation.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has directed the project team of the Islamabad Technology Park and the Ministry of Information Technology to complete the project within the current calendar year, which was earlier scheduled to end in June 2025.

PM Shehbaz Sharif said while visiting the under-construction site of the country’s largest technology park on Saturday that:

“The project was launched in 2022 during the coalition government of PDM and the contract was awarded to a South Korean company.“

He further elaborated, “The project is being completed at a cost of Rs 25 billion out of which $70 million, soft loan, is being provided by the South Korean government. Soon after taking charge of my office, I issued directions to continue work on the project round the clock,” he said, adding that he, as Chief Minister Punjab, had introduced the system of 24 hours work on the development projects.

Expressing satisfaction over the progress of the project, PM Shehbaz Sharif asked the management of the project to try their best to complete the project by September or October this year.

He said that once the project is completed, around 120 offices of various companies would be established in the park. “Similarly an incubation center with 15 offices and startups would also be part of the Technology Park, with a business support center where legal marketing and financial support facilities would be provided under one umbrella. As many as 10,000 productive jobs would be created in the IT Park for the skillful and knowledgeable workforce,” he said.

The PM reiterated that with the construction of IT Park, the country’s exports would increase by US$70 million annually. “A level 3 data center—one of the highest and first ever in Pakistan—would be established in the IT Park,” he added.

He said that Islamabad Technology Park would create synergy between domestic and foreign academia, researchers, industry, and planners. The prime minister vowed to replicate such projects in other parts of the country with the cooperation of the provincial governments.

The PM thanked the government of South Korea for their generosity in organizing the project.

Also present there was Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Attaullah Tarar and Minister of State for Information Technology Shaza Fatima Khawaja.