Pakistan told to reveal more on Y2K

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If this Intel official is correct, Y2K could have economic implications for some countries before the end of the year:

http://infoseek.go.com/Content?arn=a0643LBY686reulb-19990505&qt=pakistan&sv=IS&lk=noframes&col=NX&kt=A&ak=news1486

[snip]

INTERVIEW-Pakistan told to reveal more on Y2K

04:24 a.m. May 05, 1999 Eastern

By Ovais Subhani

KARACHI, May 5 (Reuters) - Pakistan needs to make public more information on its Y2K readiness to avoid the risk of being shut out from the rest of the world, an official of leading global chip-maker Intel Corp said on Wednesday.

``There is a potential risk that a lot of countries (and) companies, would refuse to interface with countries that have not brought their year 2000 readiness to the same level as they are,'' Phillip Wong, Intel's year 2000 programme manager for the Asia-Pacific, told Reuters.

``There is very little information'' about Pakistan's readiness ``and it is very important that companies dealing with Pakistan should have the confidence that the whole of Pakistan is year 2000 capable,'' he said.

[snip]

``If you have a system that is so-called non-compliant trying to interface with a system that is compliant, the non-compliant could very well contaminate'' the compliant, Wong said.

``A lot of financial institutions in the world, especially in the West...will have very stiff criteria in terms of banking transactions.

Many of these institutions would question whether Pakistan counterparts' internal systems were compliant and not take a risk that those systems could potentially introduce a bug or erroneous data, he said.

Wong said because there is a general perception a lot of Asian countries lag behind in working on the problem, many companies around the world might avoid them or prefer manual dealing to avoid computer system contamination.

``The general feeling that I got is that a lot of people think, even government officials, that there are very few computers in Pakistan so there may not be any implications,'' said Wong, visiting Pakistan to assess Y2K readiness.

``But a lot of private and government organisations do a lot of their transactions and communications online and there will be implications for them,'' he said.

Wong said overseas companies dealing with Pakistani institutions like banks, airports, airlines and internet users have to have confidence the whole country, including its telecommunication systems, is year 2000 capable.

He said Pakistan has been categorised by researchers as among the countries with the highest risk of being non-compliant.

``Pakistan should start working on contingency plans if they think that they may not be compliant..., but you know this would mean additional costs for private companies, and for that the government should come up with a plan,'' he said.

Wong suggested Pakistan start certififying companies whose systems are compliant and offer tax incentives to encourage companies to meet the standard.

Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

[snip]

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), May 06, 1999

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-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), May 07, 1999.

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