Federal Minister for Information Technology Awais Ahmed Khan Leghari has said that Pakistan wants to get benefit from the advanced expertise of international giants, including India in the field of information technology.
He also said that future of Pakistan lies in the rapid progress in IT sector as in the next 60 years the strength of a state would be gauged from the growth of its IT industry.
The minister expressed these remarks, while addressing the international level CEO Forum arranged by Pakistan Software Export Industry (PSEB) in conjunction with the ITCN Asia here on Friday.
Purpose of the Forum titled "Corporate Success in the Knowledge Economy" was to display the rapid strides made by Pakistani IT sector over the last few years and also to attract more foreign financing through effective interaction with foreign companies.
Various high-profile delegates representing international as well as national IT companies attended the Forum while world fame IT personalities, including Dr Tony Murphy, author of the book 'Succeeding in the Knowledge Economy'; Mr Geoffrey S Conner, former Texas Secretary of State Principal, Texas Global; Mr Raymond King, CEO About Us; Mr Gregory Hinckley, President Mentor Graphics Corporation; Mr Peter Tesarik, Vice President Global Midmarket Business, IBM CEMASS; Mr Arthur I. Anderson, Attorney Fish and Richardson, P.C.; Mr Mark Allison, Director, Texas Emerging Technology Fund; Mr Jonathan Klaus, VP Business Development, EMEA, Teradata, A division of NCR; Mr Atif Rais Khan, President & CEO, LMK Resources; Mr Faruq Ahmad, Founding Partner, Palo Alto Capital Advisors; and Mr Naeem Zafar, Partner, Concordia Ventures, addressed the audience.
Federal Minister Awais Leghari disclosed that India also wants to get benefit of the Pakistan's human resource in IT sector. "We acknowledge that India is at an advanced stage in terms of IT industry and we should benefit from its expertise," he said, adding he said that there are some bottlenecks on the part of the neighbouring state that need to be resolved in this regard.
Evaluating the contribution of PSEB in the IT sector's advancement, Awais Ahmed Leghari said that due to its vigorous initiatives Pakistan has rapidly secured an important place in the world IT market. "These initiatives would continue on regular basis as it would also enhance the international financing for the promotion of IT industry and help in marketing the local IT outsourcing services abroad."
About the potential of human resource potential, the federal minister said that it is a point of satisfaction that more or less 80 million youths under the age of 18 in Pakistan are associated with the IT sector and would further strengthen the IT industry in near future.
He pointed out that presently the local IT industry is facing shortage of IT professionals and said that there is a wide capacity of accommodating hundred of thousands of workers in addition to experts in the IT industry.
Revealing the future targets of Pakistan's IT sector, the minister said that the total size of the local IT industry would be at $10 billion in 2010 with the present over $2.2 billion revenue and $1 billion IT exports.
He pointed out that the government is actively working on introducing various more initiatives for the promotion as well as expansion of the IT sector in addition to provision of more employment opportunities for the local IT graduates.
Addressing the Forum, Managing Director of PSEB, Yusuf Hussain, said that the CEO Forum is an effective initiative where prominent international executives and local IT companies can increase interaction by exchanging their expertise. "The Forum will also help in enhancing the Venture Capital in the local IT sector," he remarked.
This is our strong endeavour that such high profile events should continue taking place as it would help in strengthening Pakistan's IT industry, he maintained. The Managing Director informed the audience that about 60 foreign IT and telecommunication companies are working in Pakistan that are also further exploring the local market in terms of more investments and outsourcing of IT-based services.
He also disclosed on the occasion that the Board is launching its Job Portal for the Pakistani industry and said that talent acquisition is the first step in the talent management. In this connection, he said, the PSEB and Brightspyre have joined hands to help the IT industry by upgrading their talent acquisition to international standards besides providing help to the foreign investors in acquire talent pool from Pakistan.