IT industry revenues cross US$4.5bn a year

ISLAMABAD: Thanks to 150 per cent growth in Information Technology (IT) and related services during recent years, total revenues of IT industry in Pakistan has crossed around US$ 4.5 billion a year.

Pakistan's IT exports have crossed US $ 3 billion per year and annual domestic revenue has reached more than US$ one billion.

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) in its report-2018 has revealed that Software Technology Parks (STPs) are a major factor in facilitating IT industry.

Currently, Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) has made available over 800,000 sq. ft. IT enabled office space in 12 designated Software Technology Parks where around 80 public and private IT/ITeS companies are engaged in software development and export services.

The report said two more IT parks, one in Islamabad and one in Karachi are being established by PSEB.

State-of-the-art ICT communication infrastructure has been provided in STPs to ensure high quality and reliable bandwidth services. PSEB data node operation is serving over 144 IT companies working inside and outside the STPs in Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar and Abbottabad.

Companies are benefitting from co-location services to reduce Opex with uninterrupted power supply. With this facility, the PSEB has converted Islamabad STP into WiFi enabled building.

In last five years PSEB has created 3,800 paid internships in different IT companies in Pakistan with objective to create jobs for at least 70% of these interns.

In 2018-19, PSEB plans to engage 3,000 more interns in IT industry.

PSEB is a pivotal organization of Government of Pakistan with a mandate to ensure sustainable development of IT industry, boost cooperation with international IT entities and create attractive environment for investment in Pakistan IT sector.

There are 950 IT companies and around 650 call centers registered with PSEB. PSEB has successfully been achieving its goals with consistent growth in IT& ITeS remittances over a decade with cumulative growth rate of 20 per cent.