By Muhammad Soban Islamabad, Feb. 24, (INP-WealthPK) Pakistan’s software market has grown apace in spite of the global economic slowdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It is now one of the fastest-growing markets in the world showing a steady growth during the last few years. The IT exports grew by 50 percent last year and reached USD2.1 billion from USD1.2 billion. Despite this robust growth, the software industry’s potential still remains untapped, which if fully exploited, will significantly contribute towards boosting the country’s exports. The last decade has witnessed a tremendous growth in the IT sector, positively affecting the economy. The current size of Pakistan’s software market is worth USD3.5 billion. The software houses are catering to the US, British, German and Chinese companies. Pakistan's computer software market has been mainly driven by local application developers, freelancers, and IT companies. In this area, there are approximately 3,000 companies involved in different types of application development, including those for domestic and corporate use. Almost all high-end companies develop and distribute enterprise resource management solutions and customized solutions for specific sectors of the economy. A growing number of companies and freelancers are also entering the online social media space, especially after the launch of the 4G spectrum in Pakistan. These development activities typically pertain to consumer applications running on Android or Apple platforms, website development, e-wallets/payments, e-commerce, and online gaming. To meet the customer's needs, foreign firms usually work either through their appointed local distributor or by setting up their own office with expert technical and support teams. According to Badar Khushnood, Chairman of Pakistan Software Houses Association, the IT culture is rapidly spreading, as Pakistan ranks 3rd in the global freelancing. Badar said the Pakistan Software Houses Association had 1,000 registered members, while 10 to 12 thousand companies were working in this sector. The culture of new start-ups in software development is also gearing up, as Pakistan has received over USD300 million worth of investment in start-ups. Badar added that increase in investment was due to improvement in the regulations of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP). The Government of Pakistan is keenly encouraging the investors by providing different incentives for investment in this sector like tax exemption on IT exports, tax holiday for venture capital funds till 2024, income tax exemption on IT profits, opening a merchant account for banks, establishing technology parks, providing high-speed internet, and 100 percent ownership of equity. Furthermore, the government has established incubation centres to facilitate new investors, both technically as well as financially, to promote their business in Pakistan. These improvements in regulations and incentives will improve the standard of services in Pakistan. It will also help Pakistan to explore talent in the field of IT by providing employment opportunities.