LAHORE: The cellular mobile operators (CMOs)haverequestedtheKhyberPakhtunl(hwa chief minister to follow in the footsteps of his counterpart in Punjab and withdraw tax on mobile phone Internet services.

The five CMOs, in their letters, expressed gratitude for Shahbaz Sharif for his decision to withdraw 19.5pc tax on mobile internet (3G and 4G LTE) and data services and requested Pervaiz Khattak to withdraw the GST on mobile broadband for promoting technology in the KP.

They said the GST withdrawal in Punjab should be continued for fast proliferation of 3G/4Gservicesacross the province and country for attracting foreign investment in the telecom sector along with benefits to the masses at large.

They said Punjab`s decision was favourable for the business and the KP government should follow suit to encourage more investment on infrastructure for the promotion of Information Communication Technologies (ICT).

`There has been an existing investment of around US $ 10 billion in the cellular networks infrastructure and investment plans in excess of US $ 4 billion are associated with the roll out of state-of-the-art 3G and 4G LTE technologies over the next 3 to 4 years,` the CMOs said.