Atif Ikram Sheikh, President FPCCI, has demanded that Karachi needs a Software Technology Park (STP) to help create an enabling environment for the export of IT and IT-enabled Services (ITeS). It is a longstanding demand of the city as it grapples with infrastructural challenges to materialize its potential in IT exports and attract investments into the industry on a large scale, he added.
It is pertinent to note that Abu Bakar, CEO of the Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB), visited the FPCCI Head Office in Karachi to discuss the facilitation of the business, industry, and trade community to invest in IT companies to boost the country’s exports.
Atif Ikram Sheikh reiterated FPCCI’s stance that Pakistan needs to diversify and expand its export basket, and IT is the industry that can deliver results for the country in the shortest possible time as it has the most efficient turnaround time. Additionally, the IT industry is the only industry in Pakistan with the potential to achieve exponential growth in its exports.
Saquib Fayyaz Magoon, SVP FPCCI, apprised that FPCCI and the Sindh Higher Education Commission (SHEC) have joined hands to organize a first-of-its-kind technology start-ups showcase to generate investments for viable start-ups and promote them on a national and international scale. We are also going to have full support from the Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA) and PSEB in this regard, he added.
Saquib Fayyaz Magoon stressed that FPCCI and the IT industry should aggregate their budget proposals and policy advocacy efforts to introduce transformational and change-making policy reforms vis-à-vis the IT industry in a macroeconomic framework through the federal budget 2025–26.
Aman Paracha, VP FPCCI, proposed that PSEB should come forward with a tangible plan to give awareness to traditional business groups in Pakistan to diversify into the IT industry. We are willing to venture into the IT industry in order to diversify out of our customary businesses; nevertheless, there should be governmental support in terms of a facilitative policy framework, clarity, and consistency in policies.
Zohaib Khan, former Chairman P@SHA and senior member FPCCI, proposed an alliance between IT-related central standing committees of FPCCI as well as business councils and PSEB. We need to have a joint working group of PSEB and FPCCI with objectives:
Abu Bakar, CEO of PSEB, agreed with FPCCI’s principled demand to establish a Software Technology Park in Karachi with subsidized services for tenant IT companies. We are working aggressively to establish a large STP in Karachi to match its enormous, young, skilled, and motivated workforce, he added.
The CEO of PSEB highlighted that IT companies internationally are owned by big business and corporate groups – a phenomenon amiss in Pakistan – as it enables the rapid provision of funds and expansion of these companies. We need to bring in private-sector, domestic investment into the IT industry of Pakistan, he added.