The principal officer, United States Consulate, Bryan D Hunt, has said Pakistan has the potential to become one of the leaders in Information Technology, but it would have to take some strategic decisions regarding the implementation of property rights laws.
Hunt's comments came at the closing ceremony of a three-day LCCI IT Fair-2008 on Wednesday. Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) President Mohammad Ali Mian, Senior Vice-President Mian Muzaffar Ali, Vice-President Shafqat Saeed Piracha, former LCCI vice-president and the chairman, Standing Committee on Event Management and Achievement Awards, Sheikh Mohammad Arshad, and the chairman, Standing Committee on Information Technology, Ibrahim Qureshi, also spoke on the occasion.
He praised the LCCI for organising the event, saying the IT sector was one of the most promising sectors. He said several Pak companies were receiving tremendous contracts from the US and once the laws pertaining to property rights were enforced properly the situation would get a boost. The LCCI chief said the Lahore Chamber was trying to promote the IT sector and the IT Fair-2008 was a step in that direction.
He said the LCCI through the IT fair has made an attempt to provide an opportunity to the local companies to interact with world renowned IT companies, including Intel and Microsoft. Mohammad Ali Mian said Pakistan has immense potential in the IT sector outsourcing services and it is eyeing to increase the size of the IT sector.
He said that with every global IT company in the world having presence in Pakistan, and with revenues growing by 30-40 percent year on year, the IT industry is the most exciting and dynamic sector in the country today.
He said an industry characterised by 75,000 professionals, major ongoing IT projects within the government and the private sector to the tune of hundreds of millions of US dollars, and world-class software products and services companies bears testimony to the vibrancy of the IT and IT-enabled services sector in Pakistan.
The convergence of communications, computing, and entertainment has resulted in the blurring of boundaries between disciplines and IT companies now come in all shapes and sizes. IT has indeed been taken out of the closet and has been mainstreamed into every aspect of industrial and economic activity within the country, he added.
The LCCI chief said the growth of the IT sector is evident from the fact that Pakistan in term of Internet-users population in Asia is at 10th place with an amazing rate of growth. "Even with this high pace of growth we still believe that a lot of work should be done to give awareness to people especially the business community.
He said with more than 1,000 IT companies registered in the country, IT exports grew by an average of 50 percent in each of the last four years. We still believe that efforts should have been made to facilitate the country's IT industry through its programs in Human Capital, Office Space, Marketing, Company Capability Development, Telecom Bandwidth, Industry Finance, Public Policy, Strategy & Research, and Facilitation.
The LCCI IT Fair-2008 was organised by the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry in collaboration with big Information Technology names, including Intel Pakistan, Microsoft Pakistan and Raffles (Pvt) Limited.
The exhibitors include hardware companies, networking solutions, Internet infrastructure and services, computer peripherals, software houses, computer telephony, data equipment and services and customised software/hardware solution providers.