With eyes on boosting the country’s information technology sector and related exports, the Pakistan government is planning to set up an IT park in the southern port city of Karachi at a cost of $150 million. Currently, IT exports account for around $2 billion.

Syed Aminul Haq, the country’s minister for information technology and telecommunication, has announced the setting up of an IT park in Karachi for which the government has already acquired land from the Civil Aviation Authority near Karachi airport, reported The Express Tribune.

“Plots will be available at much lower rates in the IT park to encourage a maximum number of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) associated with IT services to establish their businesses, which will be fully equipped with state-of-the-art infrastructure and all IT-related facilities,”  Haq said while speaking at a meeting of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI).

“This will enable our SMEs to grow at a faster pace, which is the need of the hour, keeping in mind not just our current economic situation, but also the overall global situation,” Saad Gadit, Co-founder Savyour, an IT-based solution company, said. 

The move is likely to help create an efficient ecosystem, bringing together like-minded individuals working with the same vision.

Significantly, the country’s IT exports are rising and has already crossed over $2 billion in the first eight months of the current financial year.  In 2021, the Overseas Investor Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OICCI) said in its report that the country had the potential of $10 billion in annual IT exports.

In recent years, the government, seeing the neighboring India as a major IT power, has been pushing the development of the country’s IT sector, offering firms massive tax exemptions, and other benefits. The sector also has huge potential of attracting foreign direct investment and creating jobs for youth.

(SAM)