Information Technology sector fetched $25.5 million Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in July-May 2019 compared to $29.5 million in the corresponding period last fiscal year, depicting a decline of around $4 million.
According to statistics released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), $25.5 million inflow and $5.5 million outflow was registered in the information technology sector during July-May (2018-19). The net FDI remained at $20 million during this period.
The overall communications sector (comprising telecommunication, information technology and postal & courier services) registered negative $72.9 million net FDI with $224 million inflows and $296.9 million outflows.
Net FDI in software development remained at $7.1 million, with $7.3 million inflows and 0.2 million outflows.
Hardware development received $2.3 million net FDI with $4.6 million inflows and $2.3 million outflows.
FDI inflows for IT services remained at $13.6 million and outflows stood at $3 million thus registering $10.6 million net FDI.
The FDI in Pakistan has declined by 49.2 percent during the first 11 months of current fiscal year 2018-19. SBP reported that FDI declined to $1.606 billion in the period from July 2018 to May 2019 as compared to inflows of $3.161 billion in the same period in fiscal year 2018. The SBP figures show that FDI in May 2019 fell to $230 million against $312 million in 2018.
The FDI from China declined to $495.7 million during the first 11 months of the fiscal year 2019 against $1.828 billion received from the country in the same period in fiscal year 2018.
