ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s nascent mobile phone industry shut down over two dozen production plants after running out of raw materials last week, leading to layoffs and shortage of cellphones in local market, as the government banned the import of several items due to a decline in the country’s foreign currency reserves.
According to Pakistan Mobile Phones Manufacturers Association, the monthly import bill of those running the production plants amounts to nearly $195 million and the industry has not been allowed to import raw materials since May 20.
Pakistan has been struggling to stave off a debt default by saving precious foreign exchange reserves that have fallen to $8.2 billion, barely enough to cover the import bill of just six to seven weeks.
The restriction on the import of raw materials has forced a complete closure of about 12 smartphone production units, while some of the 18 feature phone manufacturing plants have also suspended their operations.
“All plants are shut at the moment as we do not have the raw material,” Aamir Allawala, senior vice-chairman of the Pakistan Mobile Phone Manufacturers Association, told Arab News.
Local cellphone assemblers cater to 92 percent of the country’s domestic demand. The rest is met through imports. According to industry sources, Pakistan has otherwise been manufacturing over 2.5 million smartphones per month.
Allawala said smartphone manufacturing was a labor-intensive industry and had employed over 50,000 skilled and unskilled workers.
“It is unfortunate that all these jobs are at stake now as the companies cannot afford the payroll in the absence of manufacturing,” he said.
He also informed the government was not allowing the opening of letters of credit (LCs) due to the shortage of dollars.
A Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) spokesperson Asad Tahir told Arab News on Wednesday his organization was busy with the budget and revenue issues, and would not be able to comment on the issue until next week.
“At the moment, we are stuck with budget and revenue related issues, so we’ll be able to get back on this next week,” he told Arab News in response to questions regarding the ban on the import of raw material for the mobile manufacturing industry.
Nadeem Ahsan, a joint-secretary for large enterprises development at the Ministry of Industries and Production, did not respond to Arab News questions despite repeated calls.
“The overall environment of the industry is demoralizing at the moment,” he said, adding the government allowed some $3 million worth of LCs last week, but that could not help revive production.
“Locally assembled mobile phones are short in the market and this is hurting the local economy besides the industry,” he continued.
Allawala said all smartphone manufacturing units imported raw materials from China, South Korea and Vietnam for 15 days, and that stock had finished now.
“We fear that six to eight plants of smartphones may not be able to resume operations,” he said, adding it was not easy for these units to restart operations due to numerous reasons.
A State Bank of Pakistan official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the central bank did not issue instructions to banks on whether or not to open LCs for smartphone manufacturers. “There are no such instructions to private banks from the central bank,” he said.
Layoffs, phone shortage in Pakistan as mobile manufacturing industry shuts down plants
https://arab.news/zjgcb
Layoffs, phone shortage in Pakistan as mobile manufacturing industry shuts down plants
- Pakistan is trying to stave off a debt default by reducing imports to save its precious foreign currency reserves
- Mobile manufacturing industry employs around 50,000 workers, with its monthly imports amounting to $195 million
Pakistan, Afghanistan trade heavy casualty claims, battlefield losses as cross-border fighting escalates
- Pakistan says 133 Afghan Taliban killed in counter-strikes, Kabul says 55 Pakistani soldiers dead
- Both sides report destruction, capture of military posts as escalation deepens, signaling widening conflict
Islamabad/Karachi: Pakistan and Afghanistan traded claims of heavy battlefield losses early Friday as cross-border fighting intensified along their shared frontier, marking the most serious escalation in hostilities between the bitter neighbors in recent months.
The fighting follows Pakistani airstrikes earlier this week targeting what Islamabad said were Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Daesh militant camps inside Afghanistan. Pakistan said those strikes killed more than 100 militants, while Kabul said women and children were killed and condemned the attacks as violations of Afghan sovereignty.
With both governments now announcing retaliatory operations and publishing sharply conflicting casualty figures, the confrontation signals a rapid deterioration in relations between the two countries.
Pakistani officials said the latest strikes were in response to what they described as unprovoked firing by Afghan forces along multiple sectors of the border late Thursday. The Pakistani prime minister’s spokesman Mosharraf Zaidi said at 0345 hours Friday counter-strikes were continuing.
“A total of 133 Afghan Taliban are confirmed killed, more than 200 wounded,” Zaidi said in an X update. “Twenty seven (27) Afghan Taliban posts have been destroyed, and nine (9) have been captured.”
He added that strikes had targeted military positions in Kabul, Paktia and Kandahar, and that corps headquarters, brigade headquarters, ammunition depots, logistics bases and other installations had been destroyed.
Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar described the military action as “Operation Wrath for the Sake of Truth,” saying Pakistan’s “effective counter operations are ongoing.”
Defense Minister Khawaja Asif adopted sharply escalatory language on X, declaring: “Now it is open war between us and you.”
On the Afghan side, Taliban government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid accused Pakistan of bombing major cities.
“The cowardly Pakistani army has bombed some places in Kabul, Kandahar, and Paktia. Praise be to God, no one was harmed,” Mujahid said on X.
In a separate statement, Afghanistan’s Ministry of National Defense said its forces had conducted retaliatory operations along the shared border.
The ministry claimed 55 Pakistani soldiers were killed, two garrisons and 19 posts captured and military equipment seized. It said eight Afghan fighters were killed and 11 wounded in the clashes, and alleged that 13 civilians were injured in Nangarhar.
Pakistani officials said no Pakistani posts had been damaged or captured.
None of the casualty figures or battlefield claims from either side could be independently verified.
Cross-border violence has intensified in recent weeks, with Pakistan blaming a surge in suicide bombings and militant attacks on insurgents it says are based in Afghanistan. Kabul denies providing safe havens to anti-Pakistan militant groups.
The latest clashes mark the third major escalation between the neighbors in less than a year. Similar Pakistani strikes last year triggered weeklong fighting before Qatar, Türkiye and other regional actors mediated a ceasefire in October.
The 2,600-kilometer (1,600-mile) frontier, a key trade and transit corridor linking Pakistan to landlocked Afghanistan and onward to Central Asia, has faced repeated closures amid tensions, disrupting commerce and humanitarian movement. Trade and movement of people between the two nations has remained closed since October 2025.
The confrontation also unfolds against a backdrop of growing friction over Afghanistan’s regional alignments. Pakistan has repeatedly accused the Taliban authorities of allowing Indian influence to expand in Afghanistan, an allegation Kabul has rejected.
Pakistan’s defense minister Asif renewed that accusation on Friday, saying the Taliban government had turned Afghanistan into “a colony of India.”
Islamabad has long accused India of using Afghan territory to support anti-Pakistan militant groups, a charge New Delhi denies.
