The newly elected Finance Minister has hinted at touching $3.5 billion in IT exports for FY24, and part of it is due to the deals with Saudi Arabia by the IT firms after the representation of these IT companies at the annual technology conference - LEAP in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

According to P@SHA, Pakistani companies developed leads of over $100 million on the sidelines of the conference this year held in March. Industry experts are also hopeful that the IT exports for FY24 will touch around $3 billion, a rise of over 15 percent from last year’s $2.6 billion.

SBP’s data shows that during the first 8 months of FY24, IT exports almost touched $2 billion, growing by 15 percent year-on-year. A robust growth trend was also witnessed in Net IT exports (IT exports minus imports), where the tally jumped by 31 percent year-on-year.

Monthly, IT exports that include telecommunication and IT have been growing consecutively since October 2023.

The IT exports for December 2023 were the highest ever monthly exports with a tally of $303 million. However, as per the latest data by the State Bank of Pakistan, the IT exports slipped from the highest to $265 million in Jan-24, and to $257 in Feb-24 by a minor 3 percent month-on-month. Nonetheless, IT exports for Feb-24 surged by 32 percent on a year-on-year basis and remained higher than the last 12-month average of $227 million.

The share of IT exports in total goods and service exports has risen from 4 percent in FY19 to almost 8 percent in FY24 so far. Segment-wise, the year-on-year growth during 8MFY24 was led by the Computer Services sector, which also represents 80 percent of the total proceeds, followed by the Telcom sector.

As highlighted previously in the space, the rise in IT exports in recent months has come on the back of stable currency and the relaxation in the permissible retention limit in the foreign currency accounts for the exporters’ Specialized Foreign Currency Accounts by the SBP to encourage IT firms to repatriate income to local accounts.