Daily Times

Pakistan lags behind its regional competitors in ICT exports, despite the fact that the country was able to increase its ICT revenues; it has fallen two points in the international rankings compared to last year, said State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) .

However, ICT exports of Pakistan touched US$ 1 billion for the first time ever in FY18 while Pakistanis have begun to figure prominently in electronic freelancing lately.

Pakistan was home to the third largest population of professionals related to global online gig industry after India and Bangladesh, as per the ranking available at end September 2018. Improved internet access to more than 2,000 cities across Pakistan; a large number of graduates entering the workforce; and government efforts to promote freelancing are the key factors behind this growth.

As per the official statistics, computer services have generated most of the export momentum in recent years. However, while software exports have displayed a more-or-less stagnant export performance over the previous 5 years, a steady growth has been observed in the export of consultancy services.

The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) in its first quarterly report on the State of Pakistan’s Economy for FY19, said estimates by industry experts place the total size of Pakistan’s ICT exports at around US$ 2.5 billion. Of these exports, registered firms using formal banking channels to collect export receipts account for around US$ 1 billion, however, roughly US$ 1 billion is attributed to SME exports in the grey market, and the remaining US$ 0.5 billion is accounted for by freelancers in the IT and IT-enabled services (ITES) space that serve international clients.

According to the A.T. Kearney Global Services location index of 2017, Pakistan is the 10th most attractive destination among Asian countries, and 30th in the world, for offshore services. Pakistan’s score was most encouraging in financial attractiveness: 3 rd largest among Asians after Sri Lanka and Egypt amongst the 55-country index.

Pakistan had made a very late entry in call centers outsourcing industry, as an inadequate telecom infrastructure and slow pace of skill-building of the human resource did not allow it to capitalize on significant expansions in the global BPO industry that started a couple of decades ago.

Recently, Pakistan has significantly developed its backup internet support by installing six internet gateways, all the while widening the accessibility with the rollout of the NGMS (3G/4G/LTE) services. Not only has this helped improve the reliability of the communication system, but it has also aided in enhancing the speed and ability of the system to ensure faster connectivity. Realizing this opportunity, an average of 200 call centers got registered with the Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) on an annual basis over the past decade, with their export earnings, albeit still at a low level in terms of value, consistently growing at a rapid pace.

It is pertinent to note that Pakistan has an abundant supply of young and English-speaking population who can potentially assume the nature of the jobs that BPO has to offer. However, since the industry is relatively new to the country, it is still not being pursued as a long-term career; the more qualified employees tend to upgrade their careers and move into software development, quitting the BPO industry after a very short span of time. As for the new entrants, the lack of technical and professional capacities works as a major growth barrier, making it hard for the BPO industry to compete in the international market.

Published in Daily Times, February 13^th 2019.