Pakistan’s information communication and technology (ICT) exports increased by 9% or $64 million to $1.455 billion in the first half of the financial year 2024 (July-Dec’23), according to information shared by the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication (MoITT) on Wednesday.
The ICT exports stood at $1.335 billion for the same period the previous year.
In the month of December, the ICT services exports increased to $303 million, showing a hike of 22.67% in comparison to $247 million in December 2022.
“Pakistan recorded its highest monthly IT exports of $303mn, up $17 MoM and 23% YoY in Dec-2023,” said Mohammad Sohail, CEO of brokerage house Topline Securities in a post on X, formerly Twitter. The post was also reposted by Caretaker Minister for IT and Telecom Dr Umar Saif on X.
MoITT in its statement said the increase in IT & ITeS export remittance receipts was due to its coordination with the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) on improving ease of doing business environment and building IT industry’s confidence.
A trade surplus of $1.25 billion – highest in all services (85.98% of total ICT export remittances) was realised by the IT & ITeS Industry during July to December 2023.
It had shown an increase of 7.11% as compared to trade surplus of $1.17 billion during the same period last year.
Meanwhile, the services sector witnessed an overall recorded trade deficit of $1.43 billion during July-December 2023.
ICT sector exports of $1.455 billion remained the highest among all services (38.64% of total export of services) with ‘Other Business Services’ trailing at $785 million.
Speaking to Business Recorder, founder of software company Carpe Diem, Danish Ayub said the government was making efforts to facilitate the IT sector.
“It now looks that finally the government has started to take export-oriented industries beyond textile seriously. It now appears that there are people in the government who understand the potential of the IT sector,” Ayub said.
However, he added that the biggest hurdle for the industry is “its international payment issues, which is yet to be fully resolved, but banks are now seen trying to facilitate IT professionals.”
PayPal, one of the world’s leading payment gateways, is reportedly set to establish its presence in Pakistan through a strategic partnership with an existing international payment gateway, catering to freelancers and IT professionals in the country.
This was revealed by the interim IT minister earlier this month. He shared that an agreement had been reached under which the remittances would be channelised from Paypal through a third party.
“I work with American companies and they love working with Pakistani software developers. But the payment issue is a hurdle. IT exports will jump when this issue is fully resolved,” Danish Ayub said.
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