“The relationship between nations lies in the affinity between the people, and the affinity between the people lies in the interlinked heart,” an old Chinese proverb.
Likewise, the key to building “the Belt and Road” is connectivity and China Mobile Pakistan is playing the role of primary connectivity provider; thanks to its unrivalled network footprint and best-in-class high-speed data products and services that have stimulated digital penetration in the country.
China Mobile Pakistan Ltd. (CMPak) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of China Mobile Group which was established in 2007. Taking root in Pakistan 13 years back, CMPak has made great contributions to Pakistan’s digital progress.
The company has been steadfast in socio-economic development, constantly integrating into the local society, serving the people’s livelihood and benefiting the society, thus injecting strong impetus into the deepening of the friendship between China and Pakistan.
Social integration and improvement of people’s livelihood
Adhering to the people-centered development, focusing on poverty eradication, increasing employment, and improving people’s livelihood, are some of the ways China Mobile has contributed to Pakistan’s socio-economic progress.
“The rapid development of CMPak benefits from our integration into the localized operation,” Wang Hua, Chairman and CEO of CMPak, shares while summing up CMPak’s operation experience. At present, there are only 22 Chinese expatriate management teams in the company, and the Pakistani local employees account for more than 99%.
Besides cross-cultural management achieve through various initiatives, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is an important approach to integrate into localized operation of CMPak. On the International Children’s Day 2020, CMPak extended support to a primary school in the rural area of Islamabad called Malot, delivering brand-new teaching equipment to the school and distributed stationery and recreational supplies to 75 students. Similar public welfare activities are held by CMPak on a frequent basis.
CMPak adheres to the long-term focus on Pakistan’s education and health with an untiring and inexhaustible attitude. It encourages company volunteers to carry out blood donation, caring for poor women and children, out-of-school children, leukemia patients and other activities every month, and continues to spread the caring voice of Chinese enterprises in Pakistan through small yet impactful initiatives.
In addition, over the past 13 years, CMPak has provided more than 200,000 direct and indirect jobs in Pakistan, and has paid over 300 billion rupees in lieu of various taxes and fees to the local government to support Pakistan’s economic development with its own business activities.
CMPak’s profound Covid-19 response in Pakistan
In the early stages of an outbreak, it is crucial to enhance the local people’s awareness of the pandemic and popularize the knowledge of epidemic prevention. CMPak benefited from its own 2 industry advantages to actively carry out epidemic prevention publicity, including free medical hotline, free SMSs for epidemic prevention, and spread of knowledge on epidemic prevention through users’ mobile phone ring tones in Urdu.
At the same time, in order to provide scientific prevention and control knowledge, CMPak collaborated with the UNICEF, WHO and other official agencies to jointly launch short videos and pictures for the prevention of Covid-19, which were widely publicized on social media.
In order to help Pakistan tide over the epidemic, CMPak actively organized “one day income donation” activity. The company allocated funds in proportion and donated 7 million rupees to the Prime Minister’s Corona Relief Fund, purchased 16,000 N95 masks donated them to NDMA, adjusted the its historical donation in PRCS, and used all the remaining donations to purchase medical facilities for local hospitals. In addition, CMPak also provided communication products and epidemic prevention materials of about 35 million rupees to local governments of Pakistan to ensure the smooth development of the government’s epidemic prevention work. In May 2020, an Ipsos poll showed that CMPak was ranked as one of the top 10 most supportive enterprises in Pakistan.
Helping each other, serving the “Belt & Road” project
In a fully market-oriented telecom industry of Pakistan, operators generally do not make the first move to carry out network construction in these areas as they’re more concerned about the rate of return on investment.
China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a flagship project of “Belt & Road”, and the Thar Coal is one of the key projects of CPEC, which is located in the desert and has no network coverage. CMPak took the initiative to undertake the task of network construction around Thar Coal project. With an active cooperation form the project’s side, CMPak’s network personnel worked day and night and finally set up a 4G network before the Spring Festival in 2019.
CMPak has brought Pakistan not only advanced network technology, but also matured IoT applications. In 2019, CMPak cooperated with Kang Jie technology, a Chinese environmental sanitation company to install the ‘internet of vehicles’ application on 220 sanitation vehicles in Karachi, greatly improving the work efficiency of local sanitation bodies.
Stirring the industry amid stiff competition
In 2007, although there were many foreign telecom operators like Jazz and Telenor in Pakistan’s telecom market, the local market competition was far from sufficient. Since China Mobile entered this market, it has continuously increased capital investment, promoted network infrastructure construction, and improved service quality.
After bidding for the 3G/4G spectrum license in 2014, CMPak made great efforts to build 4G network. At present, the total number of Zong’s base stations has exceeded 13,000, which offers the best network coverage and network quality. Meanwhile, CMPak’s brand – Zong 4G – has become the most popular brand among young customers in Pakistan.
CMPak’s achievements in digital innovation were recognized at the “10 years of excellence” customer day in 2019 by the former Minister of MoITT who highly praised CMPak’s positive role in the technological evolution of Pakistan’s telecommunications industry. In March of the same year, the company won the “Best 4G” award issued by the Consumer Association of Pakistan.
As the tech leader of the Pakistani telecom sector, CMPak has actively carried out 5G network tests. On November 4, 2020, CMPak, together with China Mobile Beijing branch, took the lead in dialing the first 5G international video call in South Asia to Beijing from Islamabad. The key officials of MoITT and PTA participated in the activity, saying that the step would accelerate the deployment planning of 5G network in Pakistan.
In the future, China Mobile Pakistan will continue to pursue development of high-quality network infrastructure, accelerate the pace of building a world-class enterprise, and further share the achievements of China’s economic development and scientific & technological progress with the Pakistani people.
