Joint venture signed to establish Chromebook assembly line in Pakistan

The Pakistan government has signed a Letter of Understanding (LoU) with a local Google partner and a foreign company to establish a state-of-the-art Chromebook assembly line through a joint venture, according to the Press Information Department (PID) on Tuesday.

Pakistan’s IT sector has been thriving in recent years, achieving a record $310 million in inflows in April.

Data from the central bank indicates a 62 percent year-on-year growth in the sector. During the first ten months of the current fiscal year (10MFY24), IT exports reached $2.59 billion, a 21 percent increase compared to $2.14 billion in the same period of 10MFY23.

Pakistani IT exports are expected to exceed $3.5 billion following the government’s decision to increase the retention limit in Exporters’ Specialized Foreign Currency Accounts from 35 percent to 50 percent.

"In a significant development, National Radio Telecom Corporation (NRTC) Pakistan, Allied Australian, and Tech Valley Pakistan signed an LoU at the Ministry of Federal Education, initiating a groundbreaking joint venture to set up a state-of-the-art Chromebook assembly line in Pakistan," PID announced on Tuesday.

Tech Valley Pakistan, a social enterprise and the official Google for Education, Google Workspace, and Google Cloud partner in Pakistan, is part of this collaboration.

The joint venture aims to leverage the expertise, technology, and market insights of each party to establish a world-class assembly line at NRTC and Haripur City in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, pending regulatory approvals and infrastructure availability.

PID highlighted that the partnership would enhance the country's technology sector, create new economic growth opportunities, and generate employment.

"The assembly line will initially produce 500,000 Chromebooks per year, with plans to scale up to one million annually," the statement said, noting that this collaboration could position Pakistan as a regional hub for technology manufacturing and innovation.