Islamabad : The forum was dedicated to debating strategies to overcome the critical challenges that the IT sector is facing.
In the past 4 months, I had an opportunity to work closely with the IT industry and the software houses association (PASHA). It was a great team effort to work with them to help grow the IT exports by 32% in the past 2 months.
Wonderful to be part of the town hall meeting with the IT companies in Islamabad. I will always remember the love and warmth I received in my short stint in the federal government. Looking forward to the town hall meetings in Lahore and Karachi in the next few days …
Federal Minister of IT & Telecom, and Science & Technology, Caretaker Government Pakistan Dr. Umar Saif has said that the presence of the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) is leading to increase in foreign direct investment (FDI) and setting the pace of the country’s development.
Addressing a Town Hall meeting during his visit to the Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA) office, Dr. Saif said, “We have achieved 13 out of 15 important targets for the promotion of the IT & Telecom sector in a short period of 5 months in the caretaker set-up. The forum of SIFC will prove to be a great support for the upcoming elected government in the process of building and developing the country, and the elected government will also reap the benefits of the measures we have taken during the caretaker period.”
Ms. Aysha Morani Additional Secretary MOITT, Muhammad Zohaib Khan Chairman P@SHA, Nadeem malik, General Secretary P@SHA and representative from IT Industry attended the event.
Dr. Umar Saif further said that, to facilitate IT exporters and boost exports of IT and IT-enabled services, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has increased the permissible retention limit from 35% to 50% of their export proceeds in the Exporters’ Specialized Foreign Currency Accounts (ESFCAs).
“We worked with the SIFC and the State Bank to make a significant policy intervention, allowing IT companies to keep 50% of their export revenue in dollars in an account in Pakistan and make their international expenses without any restrictions from this amount,” he further explained.
He said that with this decision, allowing the retention of 50 percent in dollars, the country’s IT exports have increased by 32 percent in the last 60 days.
Additionally, Dr. Umar Saif highlighted that ICT export remittances have increased by US$ 64 million (8.99%) to US$ 1.455 billion during July to December 2023 of FY2023-24, compared to US$ 1.335 billion reported for the same period last year.