Leghari okays IT study project
KARACHI – Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari, Federal Minister for IT and Telecom has approved a project for carrying out a strategic study of the country’s IT industry.
He gave his approval to the project at a meeting with the officials of the ministry and Pakistan Software Export Board on May 7.
“The initial duration of the project is 12 months with an approximate cost of Rs11.5 million and will be funded from the PTCL Research and Development Fund,” said a ministry statement.
The minister said the aim of the project was to compile an annual IT industry study and strategic review with a view to analyzing performance of the sector across various market segments.
“Strategic Review 2004 would focus on providing a macro view of the IT sector and the developments taking place in the Pakistani market against the performance highlights of the global IT industry,” the statement quoted the minister as saying. He called for recourse to modern research methodologies during the course of strategic review, which he added should be drafted in a well-thought-out manner so that it provides a clear vision for the Pakistani IT industry to achieve a breakthrough in the global competitive environment.
The minister also called for inclusion in the strategic review “key recommendations for the companies operating within this market and the country’s federal and provincial governments”.
“The focus is to create a strategic blueprint for the Pakistani IT software and services industry, which can help companies operating in this space to maximize growth,” Leghari said.
He said another objective of the review was to compare the state of Pakistan’s IT sector vis-a-vis the global IT trends and to respond to the requirements of making necessary policies and action plans.
However, he said due to shift in global IT trends and world wide economic slowdown Pakistan unfortunately had not lived up to its full potential, with exports remaining stuck at the US $125 million level for the past few years.
This was in spite of all efforts on the part of the government to provide incentives such as a complete tax holiday till 2016 on IT and ITeS exports, dramatic reduction in the cost of bandwidth, and other similar incentives, he added.
He maintained that the government had invested heavily since 1999 both in terms of money and in terms of significant support it had provided in the form of close attention that was paid to the IT sector.
Source: The News
Date:5/8/2004
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