Pakistan’s IT exports soar to $2.2 billion

Remittances from Pakistan’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) exports, including telecommunications, computing, and information technology services, jumped 29.29% year-over-year to 2.0%. $198 billion between July 2021 and April 2022.

During the same 10-month period of the previous year, ICT exports amounted to 1.7 billion dollars, said a statement issued on Friday by the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunications.

In April 2022 alone, ICT export remittances totaled $249 million, growing 29.02% compared to $193 million in April 2021.

However, compared to $260 million in export remittances in the previous month of March 2022, remittances in April were down $11 million. Net exports from July 2021 to April 2022 amounted to $1.665 billion, or 75.75% of $2.198 billion worth of ICT exports.

Last year, over the same period, net exports were valued at $1.274 billion, representing 74.94% of the $1.7 billion in ICT exports.

In addition to promoting ICT exports, the Ministry of Information Technology is also working to remove all obstacles and improve cooperation with the telecommunications sector for the implementation of the Digital Pakistan Vision including efforts to reduce taxes and other central bank and right-of-way issues.

In a meeting with Telenor officials on Thursday, Federal IT Minister Syed Aminul Haque stressed that the telecommunications sector needs to modernize its infrastructure to improve the quality of services.

He stated that the IT ministry provided a subsidy of 90% to 95% for the provision of mobile and broadband services in unserved and under-served areas and telecommunications companies are now expected to play their part in improving services in urban areas. ‘’For the digitisation process, it is crucial to respond to public complaints and expand telecommunications networks,’’ said the minister.