H1FY22: minister says ‘freelancers earn export revenue of $216.788m’

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s freelancers have earned export revenue of $216.788 million during the first half (July-December) of current fiscal year 2021-22 at a growth rate of 16.74 percent as compared to last year’s $185.698 million, said Syed Aminul Haque, federal minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication.

The minister said that, freelancers have earned export revenue of $216.788 million including IT, $163.881 million and non-IT, $52.907 million during July-December 2021.

The exports earning registered a growth rate of 16.74 percent as compared to last year’s export revenue of $185.698 million including IT, $173.327 million and non-IT, $12.371 million during July-December 2020.

The minister also said that IT export remittances of freelancers during July-December of fiscal year 2021-22 were $163.881 million that account for 12.59 percent of the total ICT export remittances of $1,301.880 million during the same period.

The minister also inaugurated the secure data centre in the National Information Technology Board under the Ministry of IT with a cost of Rs330 million.

The centre has 500 terabyte storage capacity which would ensure secure testing of ministries, departments’ websites, mobile applications, web portals. Haque said that the most active and effective role of the Ministry of IT in fulfilling the Prime Minister’s Digital Pakistan Vision is in front of everyone. Activities for e-office in more government departments are in full swing, so that all these institutions can be digitised. In this regard, more than 15,000 government officers and employees have been trained in e-office.

He further said that a state-of-the-art data centre has been set up in line with the cybersecurity requirements, which will help in setting up a secure testing environment for government agencies and ministries’ websites, mobile applications and web portals at the NITB. Earlier, testing of applications and web portals was done by the NTC or third party. There were risks of data leaks or hacking in this process which has been eliminated, he added.

The minister said that the bill to make the NITB independent was passed by the National Assembly. He also said that the bill would be passed through political lobbying in the Senate. He said that the NITB has developed more than 25 web portals and 15 mobile applications and handed them over to various government agencies. Notable among these applications, web portals are Successful Youth Programme Portal, Pakistan Citizen Portal, Code 19 Mobile Application and Web Portal, E-Education Portal, Pak Naghban Mobile Application, National Job Portal, Betty App, while City Islamabad Application was prepared by the NITB under which more than Rs1 billion of revenue was collected in the last financial year and given to the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).

Haque said that the basis of democracy is the system of local governments but in Sindh the PPP government has taken away all the powers from the local representatives and they are in control of it.

The powers vested in them by the 18th Amendment from the federation cannot be confined to the Chief Minister’s House. The decision of the Supreme Court to harmonise all the laws with regard to local government under Article 140A is historic. This is not a victory for the MQM but for the people, he added.

Secretary IT Dr Sohail Rajput, Member Legal, Member Telecom, Member International Coordination, MD NTC, Acting Executive Director NITB, and other officials were also present on the occasion.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022