IT Industry has contributed 98% to Pakistan’s economy by foreign exchange earnings

[Varun]

Minister of State for Information Technology and Telecom Anusha Rehman on Monday lead the 36th meeting of the Boards of Directors of Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) to assess the work being done on various IT initiatives taken by PSEB including Prime Minister’s Internship Programme and Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI).

PSEB Acting Managing Director Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah updated the board with achievemts of PSB over the last four years. The board was briefed that PSEB has showcased their work at 11 international trade fairs alongside over 65 IT companies, which are making above two thousand leads. This exhibition enhanced the perception of Pakistan as an important destination in terms of outsourcing and investment. According to him, exhibiting at the trade fairs also helped improve the image of Pakistan as a viable destination for outsourcing and investment, because PSEB’s participation in the exhibitions have increased Pakistan’s exports in all the countries that hosted the exhibitions.

According to him, because of the active PSEB technical and financial assistance throughout the past four years, over 30 selected IT professionals and 28 IT companies have been given certificates in Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMi) platform. Apart from this, 134 companies have gotten certifications in ISO 9001, ISO27001 and ISO 20001 as PSEB empowered them to acquire exports from the developed markets.

The minister agreed and added that the great work done by Pakistan’s IT sector is evident from the fact that IT Industry exports have contributed 98% to Pakistan’s economy by foreign exchange earnings and job creation through growth in the past 4 years. She also said, “Due recognition must be extended to our freelancers who have catapulted Pakistan on the 4th spot on the largest freelancing website in the world.”

Anusha felt pride in the fact that Pakistan has a huge number of extremely talented youth, and the government is striving to provide them with the best resources and opportunities.

Anusha said that PSEB in partnership with National ICT R&D Fund (IGNITE) has recruited over 1,700 IT graduates as interns this year for having hands on experience with IT companies, as well as IT departments at Telcos/CMOs, banks, and also educational institutes. Among these interns, more than 60 percent received job offers after the completion of their training tenure.

According to her, the government is going to announce a national level digital skills training program to empower 1 million freelancers of the country who have an experience of over 5 years with the skills that are needed to increase their productivity.

Later, the minister also lead one more meeting and gave her approval for “DigiSkills”— an initiative to mentor 1 million youth with a focus to use technology in the best way by bringing excellence in technology, introducing innovation and respecting work ethics, alongside the vision of building a workforce for a future of the 4th Industrial Revolution.

She commented, “Our educational institutes are producing huge number of graduates every year. More than 20,000 IT graduates and engineers are being produced annually and it’s time that we prepare our workforce for new technologies in line with fast growing trends of freelancing and entrepreneurship.”

https://www.techjuice.pk/it-industr...y-by-foreign-exchange-earnings-anusha-rehman/

Interesting comments. IT helped India supercharge the Indian economy through the 2000s, there's no reason why it wouldn't Pakistan's as well.

 

[Pakistanian]

Pakistan doesn't have a tech industry, the govt there lies and fudges the numbers so they can fool people.

 

[Madplayer]

98% sounds too much to be true

 

[jusarrived]

Interesting comments. IT helped India supercharge the Indian economy through the 2000s, there's no reason why it wouldn't Pakistan's as well.

IT services industry is almost dead , even India will struggle to maintain let alone grow exports from this sector .

 

[Varun]

IT services industry is almost dead , even India will struggle to maintain let alone grow exports from this sector .

It's obviously past its boom phase, but it did a good job for our economy from the 1990s to the late 2000s.

 

[jusarrived]

It's obviously past its boom phase, but it did a good job for our economy from the 1990s to the late 2000s.

Yeah definitely . IT boom triggered a growth phase for lot of other sectors as well . Just saying its too late for Pakistan , it could have done the same or may be more for their economy , considering they are much smaller, but they muffed it up badly .

 

[vagabond007ti]

IT services industry is almost dead , even India will struggle to maintain let alone grow exports from this sector .

Growth rate of IT services have come down but I do not see any reduction. How can you say industry is dead?

 

[jusarrived]

Growth rate of IT services have come down but I do not see any reduction. How can you say industry is dead?

You dont see a big reduction cos most of these services companies have signed multi year deals in the last 5 years so continue to generate revenues for next 4-5 years , but each of them when they come for next renewal the possibilities are .
1) Customer ends the relationship , cos they already have a mature in house IT .
or
2) A considerably shorter tenure deal , where they negotiate a lot more for less money spent .

The outsourcing model has no future , which was based on cost savings on engineers/manpower and in near future most companies will need may be at best one third of the manpower they did in the past , it makes little economic sense to outsource your IT to third party . Managing IT will becomes increasingly easier with a small in house IT team. Am telling some of this from my own experience working for IT in a product company, increasingly Iam finding it very difficult to justify my team strength/headcount every quarter and we simply have a policy of no new hires for next 3 years . I lose a team member , they will let me get some one internally from another technology , but no one from outside .

The only upside is , more captives may come to India which will create some jobs but that number is in thousands compare to million plus who are part of IT services industry

 

[DW44]

Meh. Government policy should be focusing strictly on manufacturing, to the exclusion of other sectors if need be. IT outsourcing and the service sector in general is a crappy foundation to build your economy on since the service sector is inherently one with low productivity growth, the exception being service industries that serve the manufacturing sector, something that usually exists in countries that have already industrialized.

 

[vagabond007ti]

You dont see a big reduction cos most of these services companies have signed multi year deals in the last 5 years so continue to generate revenues for next 4-5 years , but each of them when they come for next renewal the possibilities are .
1) Customer ends the relationship , cos they already have a mature in house IT .
or
2) A considerably shorter tenure deal , where they negotiate a lot more for less money spent .

The outsourcing model has no future , which was based on cost savings on engineers/manpower and in near future most companies will need may be at best one third of the manpower they did in the past , it makes little economic sense to outsource your IT to third party . Managing IT will becomes increasingly easier with a small in house IT team. Am telling some of this from my own experience working for IT in a product company, increasingly Iam finding it very difficult to justify my team strength/headcount every quarter and we simply have a policy of no new hires for next 3 years . I lose a team member , they will let me get some one internally from another technology , but no one from outside .

The only upside is , more captives may come to India which will create some jobs but that number is in thousands compare to million plus who are part of IT services industry

Outsourcing will be there as long as 1$ = 65 rupees.

Currently US economy is doing well hence little break on outsourcing. Trust me, when next recession hits US, all CEOs and CIOs will be looking to cut cost and outsourcing is first weapon they have.

 

[jusarrived]

Outsourcing will be there as long as 1$ = 65 rupees.

Currently US economy is doing well hence little break on outsourcing. Trust me, when next recession hits US, all CEOs and CIOs will be looking to cut cost and outsourcing is first weapon they have.

I dont think its that simple , the INR-USD rate remains the same does not necessarily mean , we will continue to have the same cost advantage . Employee cost/wages in India has gone up nearly 300% if you compare from 90s , unlike in the US where its been fairly stable . Anyway that apart employee cost will not be a such a big factor in future as we are moving towards getting more done from less manpower . So by the time recession hits US next time , most companies would have a very lean IT , Infra being on cloud and like I said only gain from this being a lot of these companies may setup their captives in India .