Minister questions IT exporters on discrepancies in returns

ISLAMABAD: Information technology minister Anusha Rehman on Tuesday asked the exporters to explain the reasons behind a wide difference between the actual $2.5 to 2.7 billion and documented $500 million annual IT exports.

“The IT sector is totally un-regulated, but the government will not accept such discrepancies,” Anusha Rehman said while addressing IT Awards 2016. The minister asked the top IT exporters of the country to explain the discrepancies, who denied the allegation, however conceded there might be errors in filing forms.

“Exporters are following all rules and regulations, however due to some errors in filing their forms, there may be some discrepancies. There is problem in form R that needs to be rectified,” the IT exporters said.

The IT exporters also raised their concerns regarding security and lack of proper infrastructure in front of the minister, blaming the two as major hurdles in boosting the sector. However, the minister rejected the concerns about security and said that the law and order situation was improving. About infrastructure the minister said that the government was going to establish IT and software parks across the country to provide a friendly environment to the industry. 

The minister also announced that Executive Committee of National Economic Council (ECNEC) on Tuesday approved the country’s first state of the art IT park in Islamabad. She said that Korean Exim Bank has agreed to finance $50 million to establish the park to promote IT and telecom sector. The bank has also carried out the feasibility study for setting up the park in Chak Shahzad, Islamabad, and a loan agreement for the project is expected to be signed soon. “Exim Bank will provide soft loan for the IT Park,” she said.

Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) has leased about 45 acres of land in Chak Shahzad for the purpose. The minister added that work on the IT parks in Lahore and Karachi would start soon.

Earlier, the concept of the IT park was approved by the Planning Commission and the Ministry of Information Technology was in the process of preparing PC-II in consultation with the World Bank. The World Bank had expressed its desire to invest up to $45 million in the project, however due to some hindrances the government later engaged Exim Korean Bank.

PSEB in collaboration with the Ministry of IT and Telecom arranged the inaugural ‘IT Awards 2016’ to recognise the efforts of the various IT companies. The awards were divided in categories including top 10 IT exporting companies, three awards for innovation, three awards for startups, and three awards for IT and ITES (domestic).

Top 10 IT companies were Netsol, Systems Limited, S&P Global Pakistan, Teradata, TRG Pakistan, Medical Transcription Billing Co, Ovex Technologies, i2c Pakistan, LMKR, and Mentor Graphics.

It is worth mentioning that Netsol managed to fetch over 20 million dollars in IT exports whereas four other companies secured over 10 million dollars in IT exports. Top three companies in innovation were Astica, Solotech, XGrid, while the top three startups were Synergy IT, Venture drive, and MD Vision. In the category of IT and ITES (domestic) the awards recognised Inbox, Infotech, and NIFT.