Muhammad Umair Nizam, Senior Vice Chairman of the Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA), announced that Pakistan’s information technology sector is poised to become the country’s fastest-growing export industry, with IT exports expected to hit $4 billion in the fiscal year 2025 (July 2024 – June 2025). This marks a significant increase from $3.2 billion in FY24, reflecting an optimistic 25 percent year-on-year growth.
The announcement came during a high-profile interactive CXO session organized by P@SHA in Karachi, which brought together CEOs and senior executives from leading IT companies across Pakistan. The session focused on trends in IT exports, challenges faced by the sector, infrastructural development, government relations, international collaborations, and investment opportunities.
Key P@SHA leaders including Vice Chairman Raheel Iqbal, Treasurer Haris Naseer, and Central Executive Committee members Munaf Majeed, Usman Akbar, and Hassan Bin Rizwan also participated in the strategic discussions.
Umair Nizam expressed the industry’s appreciation for the initiatives taken by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Ministry of Information Technology & Telecom (MoITT), Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC), and Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB). However, he emphasized the need for faster policy-making and regulatory reforms by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to create a more enabling and incentivizing environment that matches the rapid growth of the IT and IT-enabled Services (ITeS) sector.
Highlighting the expansion into new tech sub-sectors, Nizam noted that outdated regulations are causing bottlenecks due to their inability to keep pace with industry developments.
Looking ahead to the Federal Budget 2025–26, expected in early June 2025, P@SHA has submitted detailed, data-driven proposals calling for a pro-investment and pro-business approach. Key demands include a 10-year tax holiday to attract foreign and domestic investment, streamlined foreign exchange regulations, better facilitation from commercial banks, removal of sales tax anomalies, increased funding for skills development, and accelerated implementation of Special Technology Zones (STZs) and IT parks.
A critical issue raised by the IT sector is the disparity in income tax rates between salaried employees and freelancers. Salaried employees face tax rates up to 35 percent, while freelancers pay between 0.25 and 1 percent, creating a significant imbalance that discourages salaried workers. P@SHA urges this anomaly to be addressed in the upcoming budget.
Muhammad Zohaib Khan, immediate past Chairman of P@SHA, underscored the importance of the IT industry as Pakistan’s only sector with a trade surplus of around 75 percent. He highlighted its potential for exponential growth, rapid employment generation, skilled workforce development, and its vital role in reducing the trade deficit and maintaining healthy current and external accounts sustainably.
