On Tuesday, the Minister of Information Technology and Telecommunications, Syed Amin-ul-Haque, told the Senate that IT exports had increased by 40 per cent over the past six months.
In response to various additional questions during Question Hour, the Minister claimed that the export inflow goal for remittances for 2020-23 was $5 billion.
He said Pakistan would soon begin assembling cell phones and the ECC and Cabinet had already approved its accessories and strategy.
He said IT grew faster, received valuable foreign exchange, created high-paying employment, increased national competitiveness and quality of life through creative solutions for technology.
He said the IT sector has a potential of more than $10 billion to increase its exports. Pakistan’s IT industry was an emerging regime, he stated.
Export remittances for IT & IT enabled services (ITeS), including telecommunications, computer and information services, increased to $763,060 million during July-November of FY 2020-21 at a growth rate of 39.03 percent compared to $548,830 million during July-November of FY 2019-20, he added.
The main markets for Pakistan’s IT industry are currently North America, the UAE and the UK, he said.
He said Pakistan’s IT industry has exported goods and services to more than 100 countries and counts among its daily customers the world’s largest companies. It was Pakistan’s economy’s biggest net service export sector, he added.
He said the IT sector in Pakistan had the bandwidth to provide state-of-the-art IT products and services and thus had the ability to raise Pakistan’s much-needed foreign exchange earnings significantly.
As of 30 November, 2020, the number of PSEB registered IT & ITeS companies was 2,746 compared to 2,121 valid registrations as of November 2019, he said.
In addition, PTA was in the process of revising the responsibilities of Quality of Service and Deployment to further enhance connectivity services throughout Pakistan, he said.
