ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s information technology sector suffers losses of more than one million dollars per hour on account of internet shutdown in the country, said Sajjad Mustafa Syed, chairman Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA).
“To achieve the government’s envisaged target of $15 billion IT exports is linked with market access, infrastructure stability, accommodative taxation policy as well as skilled human resources” said P@SHA chairman, while talking to media persons here on Tuesday.
He further said that if government invests one dollar in market access, it results into return of $49, as evident from the last three years pattern. He said that IT sector has registered around 40 percent, taking the exports to $3.2 billion. He said that 55 percent IT exports of Pakistan is going to US followed by 20 percent to Europe. However, the government needs to focus and invest on branding to realise the actual potential of the sector.
Business community leader assails curbs on Internet
Talking about the outcome of repeated internet shut down in the country, Syed said that 99 percent firms/ companied reported that their services were disrupted and 90 percent reported losses. Quoting an example, the chairman said that due to recent internet shut down one call centre suffered a penalty of $2 million.
Talking about duties and taxes, he said that the sector pays taxes on its revenue, which hurts it. He urged the government for tax incentives to allow the sector to flourish, bring remittances as well as investment.
He said that barrier to entry to IT sector are low, but barrier to exit are also low; therefore, government should not come up with such taxation policies which force the companies to leave the country and instead should facilitate them for bringing more investment.
He also lamented the IT sector is yet to be recognised as industry, and resultantly their input cost is high on account of tariff and other related things.
He further said that free virtual private network is risk for data security and the government should go for VPN services providers’ pattern to make it more secure, as well as, industry friendly. He said that VPN cannot be blocked under the PECA law, as it is not content but a tool.
He further said that P@SHA plays role in policy harmonization as it should not be in isolations. He admitted that the country is producing around 35,000 IT graduate, but hardly 5,000-6,000 adjust in the sector due to not meeting the industry requirement. He said that government is planning a project of worth around Rs8 billion to develop skill which is expected to produce good results.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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