Aitizaz Hassan

The Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication (MOITT) and its relevant departments showed remarkable performance in 2022, says a report. The report of the MOITT, a copy of which is available with WealthPK, showed that 1,638 new IT companies were registered in 2022.

Under the National Freelance Training Program initiated with the funds of the MOITT, 20 training centres were established across the country. The report said 8,647 graduates were trained in global IT courses, and these students contributed to the country's economy by earning $23 million through freelancing. 7,000 more graduates will be trained at these centres till June 2023. Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) has 761 registered call centres and 1,463 freelancers. Fifteen new software technology parks were established under public private partnership (PPP) in different districts of the country.

The report said the foundation stones of state-of-the-art IT parks with a total cost of Rs60 billion were laid in the federal capital Islamabad and Sindh’s capital city of Karachi. These two projects will be completed in a short period of three years. Similarly, the information and communication technology (ICT) exports stood at $2.389 billion from January to November 2022, while the figures of December will be available by the end of January 2023. During the same period 2021, this volume was $2.198 billion.

The report said 3 million people have been registered for freelancing courses by DigiSkills training program under Ignite (National Technology Fund), which is 75% more than the target of 833,000 registrants in 2022. By June 2022, freelancers trained with DigiSkills training program earned $290 million, adding to the country's foreign exchange. The country's sixth state-of-the-art national incubation centre was established in Hyderabad (Sindh) and seventh in Faisalabad (Punjab).

The report further said that the start-ups of the national incubation centres established in the country received funds of $20 million from various sources this year thanks to their unique projects.

According to a recent report of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), the Authority in collaboration with the PSEB has launched an online portal for one-window operation of internet protocol (IP) whitelisting and virtual private network (VPN) registration for software houses, call centres, and freelancers.

The portal has been established to promote ease of doing business. Call centres, software development companies, and freelancers with at least one static IP address and verification letter from their respective business concerns can register themselves on this portal. Previously, call centres and IT companies had to route their applications through relevant internet service providers (ISPs).

Credit : Independent News Pakistan-WealthPk