ISLAMABAD – The Information Technology (IT) and Telecommunication industryof the country has contributed US $ 540 million foreign exchange tonational kitty through exports during first two quarters of this fiscalyear 2018-2019.
The telecommunication, computer and information services managed to exportIT and IT-enabled services worth US $ 540 million,seeing an increase of US $ 20 million as compared to exports figures ofsame period last year, statistics of State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) revealed.
The year-on-year increase of just 3.8 per cent in export value of ITindustry is a lower than expected and it islikely due to impact of rupee’s depreciation against dollar.
It is pertinent to mention here that Pakistan’s IT industry achieved abenchmark of US $ 1.065 billion of exports inlast financial year 2017-18.
Pakistan Software Exports Board (PSEB) had chalked out a plan to boostexports to over US$ 6 billion by 2020 and US $ 10billion by 2025.
The present government has also emphasized digitization of the economy andthe IT sector. It has formed a specialtask force on IT, comprising big names in industry, for promotion of thesector and facilitating job creation and exports growth.
The targets set for IT exports are ambitious but can be achieved ifopportunities are availed timely by nationalcompanies in fields such as Cloud Computing, Mobile Apps, ArtificialIntelligence, block chain and etc.
According to Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB), Pakistan’s IT &ITeS-BPO industry comprises more than2,500 companies, and this number is growing each year. The industry employsover 300,000 English-speaking professionalswith many world-class experts in current and emerging IT products andtechnologies.
The IT is one of the sectors which has a lot of potential. It can not onlyincrease the much-needed export receipts of the country but it can alsoprovide jobs to millions of Pakistanis if they are provided opportunitiesand training.
Pakistan is ranked as the 4th most popular country for free-lancing inOnline Labor Index published in 2017 by Oxford Internet Institute (OII).It is also listed as the 4th most financially attractive country in theworld for outsourcing services as per A.T. Kearney’s Global ServicesLocation Index 2016.