The National Assembly was informed by Shaza Fatima Khawaja, Minister of State for IT and Telecommunication, that the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication (MoITT) has created 43 Software Technology Parks (STPs) throughout Pakistan under the Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB).
With more than 350 IT and IT-enabled services (ITeS) companies and 18,000 experts working for them, these STPs are situated in tier-II and tier-III cities. Twenty percent of the employees at these technological parks are women.
In addition to producing $15 million in domestic revenue each year, the STPs produce $100 million in foreign exchange revenues.
A 1.12 million-square-foot, cutting-edge IT park in Karachi is presently being developed and should be operational by 2027, according to Minister Shaza Fatima. According to the $186 million project, IT exports would increase by $90 million and 13,400 jobs will be created.
Read more: Government plans to establish 10 IT parks by next year
Another 720,000-square-foot IT park is now being built in Islamabad and is expected to be finished in 2025. This $88.4 million project is anticipated to boost IT exports by $70 million and provide 7,500 job possibilities. These infrastructure initiatives are a component of the government’s larger plan to improve the nation’s ICT environment.
As part of the “Prime Minister’s Initiatives—Support for Startups, Specialised IT Trainings, and Venture Capital” project of the Public Sector Development Program (PSDP), the MoITT also intends to open 250 e-Rozgaar centres throughout Pakistan in the upcoming three years. With an estimated $18–20 million boost in revenue, these centres hope to assist 25,000 independent contractors and business owners. In the fiscal year 2024–2025, 50 e-Rozgaar centres will open as part of this plan.
The first-ever Women Technology Park in Pakistan is being built in partnership with the Women University in Bagh, Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), and is expected to open by FY 2024–2025, according to Minister Shaza Fatima. In order to create a STP in the area, PSEB is also collaborating with the Gilgit-Baltistan administration and the Special Communications Organisation (SCO).
In collaboration with the ICT sector, the government has also started a number of initiatives to improve the skills of IT workers and businesses, as well as to make it easier for them to sell internationally and take part in international events.
Export remittances increased 32.7 percent to $1.53 billion in the first five months of FY 2024-25 from $1.15 billion in the same period last year, indicating the country’s ICT sector has experienced notable growth. Remittances from ICT exports totalled $324 million in November 2024 alone, a 25 percent increase over November 2023.
The trade surplus for the IT and ITeS sector was $1.35 billion, up 36.5 percent from $989 million during the same time last year. In comparison, there was a $1.148 billion trade imbalance in Pakistan’s services industry as a whole during that time.