KARACHI: The News said on Friday that Pakistan’s information technology (IT) exports reached a record-breaking $259 million in November, up 9% month over month. This is the country’s greatest level of exports in the previous twelve months.
Brokerage firm Topline Securities claims that the increase is due to the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) relaxing the allowable retention limit, which permits IT exporters to retain 50% of their overseas revenues in their specialized accounts as opposed to the prior 35%.
IT companies were also encouraged to repatriate their offshore income and deposit it into local accounts by a stable currency. The country’s foreign exchange reserves might be increased by bringing back the estimated $1–2 billion that IT companies have stashed abroad, according to acting IT Minister Umar Saif.
The amount that technology companies, which offer services like software development, web design, data processing, and call centers to clients globally, remit back to Pakistan is represented by the IT export figure.
In November 2023, computer services—which made up 83% of all IT exports—grew by 14% month over month and 20% year over year, while telecom services, which made up 17%, decreased by 11% month over month.
The export of computer software saw a 14% month-over-month increase, trailed by the greatest growth rate of 28% for other computer services like consulting, training, and maintenance.
IT exports increased by 6% year over year to $1.2 billion in the first five months of the fiscal year 2023–24 (July–November), accounting for 7.4% of the nation’s overall exports. exports of net IT, in November 2023, net IT exports—which subtract IT imports from IT exports—rose to $226 million, up 7% year and 11% month over month.
Net IT exports increased by 10% year over year to $2.4 billion on a trailing 12-month basis.
According to a report by technology research and consulting firm Gartner, the IT sector is likely to gain from the global and regional trends of growing spending on software and IT services.
According to Gartner, global software spending will rise by 13.8% and IT services spending would rise by 10.4% by 2024.
To speed up digitalization, MENA (Middle East and North Africa) software spending was predicted to climb by double digits in 2024, rising to 12.3%. The following year, IT services spending was predicted to rise by 11.1%.
