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y rolled out their infrastructure, reaching out to most of the population, there still remains huge areas like Broadband, WLL and manufacturing etc, where investment opportunities exist. During the current year, a total of US$ 1.6 billion worth of investment has been made by all the operators, of which the cellular mobile share is about 75%. The WLL has marginally increased investment from US$ 52.8 million in 2007-08 to US$ 82.11 million in 2008-09. However, the rest of all of the sectors have reduced the level of their investment.

Telecom Sector Investments

Foreign Direct Investment

On the conclusion of the World War-II, the cross border investment flows, FDI [Foreign Direct Investment], tremendously increased playing a pivotal role in development of the recipient countries. The Marshal Plan, particularly, is considered to be a good example in this regard. Since then, the developing countries took various initiatives to attract more and more foreign investment to boost their economic growth.

Pakistan has also taken measures to secure more foreign investment in the country where it offered various incentives to foreign investors. At present, Pakistan has the most liberal FDI policy in the region, where 100% equity is allowed and investors can repatriate 100% of their profit. Owing to this liberal policy, Pakistan attracted significant foreign investment inflows during the previous years; however, this trend showed decline in 2008-09 where overall FDI declined by 31.2%. During this period, Pakistan attracted FDI worth US$ 3.7 billion altogether. During the last two years, inflows had crossed US$5billion per year. Pakistan's telecom sector remained the largest recipient of the FDI during the last few years capturing more than one fourth of total FDI.

During the last 5 years, Pakistan attracted over US$ 19 billion FDI, of which 34% was in telecom sector. In the current year, the telecom sector received over US$ 815 million FDI, which is 22% of the total FDI in Pakistan.

Major countries which invested more than 70% in last 5 years in Pakistan's telecom sector included United Arab Emirates, United States of America, Norway and the Peoples Republic of China. The UAE emerges as the leading country investing over 36% of the total FDI in the telecom sector in the last 5 years. UAE invested in the companies like Wateen, Warid Telecom and PTCL. Etisalat, UAE based company, bought out 26% shares of the PTCL worth US$ 2.4 billion. The UAE has invested over US$2.3 billion in the telecom sector of Pakistan since 2004-05. China Mobile has its first overseas adventure in Pakistan cellular mobile sector, in addition to telecom manufacturing through companies like ZTE and others.

Investment from Republic of China exceeded US$ 599 million in the telecom sector of Pakistan during the last 5 years. Telenor, a Norway based company, also brought about half a billion US dollars foreign investment into Pakistan during the last 5 years.

Taxes

The telecom sector contributes 1-2% in the total GDP, making its share in total tax revenue as 6-7% per annum. During the year 2008-09, the sector continued to contribute handsome amount in national kitty through various taxes and regulatory charges. Telecom sectors' contribution to national exchequer rose to Rs. 112 billion in 2008-09 compared to Rs. 111 billion the previous