ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: The Federal Minister for IT and Telecommunication Syed Amin Ul Haque told the Senate on Tuesday that the Country’s IT Sector has the potential to increase its exports manifold.
In a written reply to a question, the minister told the House that Pakistan’s IT industry is an evolving regime, it is growing at a faster rate, earning valuable foreign exchange, creating high paying jobs, improving national productivity and quality of life through innovative technology solutions.
The minister said that this can be garnered from the fact that IT & IT enabled Services (ITeS) export remittances comprising computer services and call center services have surged to US$ 1.230 billion at a growth rate of 23.71% in the FY 2019-20 in comparison to US$ 994.848 million during the same period despite current global economic challenges thereby demonstrating the resilience of Pakistan’s IT Sector.
The House was told that the IT & IT enabled Services (ITeS) export remittances comprising computer services and call center services surged to US$ 648.940 million at a growth rate of 38.16% during July-November of FY 2020-21 in comparison to US $469.713 million during July-November of FY 2019-20.
The IT & IT enabled Services (ITeS) export remittances including telecommunication, computer, and information services rose to US$ 763.060 million at a growth rate of 39.03% during July-November of FY 2020-21 in comparison to US$ 548.830 million during July-November of FY 2019-20. The exports remittances inflow target for 2020-23 is US$ 5 billion.
The minister also told that the number of PSEB registered IT & ITeS companies as of November 30, 2020 is 2,746 compared to 2,121 valid registrations as of November 2019. This growth rate of 29.46% demonstrates stellar growth rates by any yardstick.
Syed Amin Ul Haque told that this growth has been achieved despite current global economic and COVID challenges. He told that North America, UAE, and the UK are currently the largest markets for Pakistan’s IT Industry.
Pakistan’s IT Sector exports products and services to over 100 Countries and counts the world’s largest entities among its regular clients. It is the largest net service export industry in Pakistan’s economy.
Pakistan’s IT Sector has the bandwidth to provide state of the art IT products and services and thus has the potential to significantly boost much needed foreign exchange earnings for Pakistan.
