Pakistan’s State Minister for Information Technology, Shaza Fatima Khawaja, has recently highlighted the potential benefits arising from the collaboration between Pakistan’s technical prowess and Saudi Arabia’s market demand. This partnership is poised to foster significant investment opportunities within the IT and telecommunications industries.
Khawaja’s remarks were delivered during a dialogue with Saudi technology companies, which are part of a substantial contingent of Saudi investors attending a two-day investment conference in Islamabad.
We are dedicated to offering a stable and supportive framework … We encourage all Saudi companies to explore opportunities for partnerships and joint ventures,
a Pakistani news agency reported, paraphrasing Khawaja’s encouragement to the Saudi delegation to leverage the synergies created by Pakistani technical expertise and access to the expansive Saudi market.
In a move to strengthen their IT relationship, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in Riyadh in 2023. This agreement aims to boost bilateral cooperation in the realm of information technology, with special emphasis on expediting digital transformation, nurturing innovation, and enhancing digital infrastructure. Following this agreement, Saudi Arabia announced the establishment of a specialized desk to facilitate the incorporation of Pakistani IT firms into the Kingdom.
At the LEAP 2023 conference in Saudi Arabia, the IT sector witnessed deals worth $9 billion, with Pakistani companies securing potential leads valued at over $100 million through business-to-business matchmaking, as reported by the Pakistan Software Houses Association.
The software market in Pakistan has been experiencing consistent expansion over the years, with the industry currently valued at around $3.2 billion.
According to the International Trade Administration, the United States remains Pakistan’s premier IT market, accounting for 54.5 percent of the market share in the 2023 financial year. Predominantly, Pakistan’s IT sector encompasses software development and IT-enabled services, including data centers, technical service centers, call centers, and telecom services, with 60 percent of these services catering to international clientele. This growth trajectory is largely attributed to the contributions of freelancers and burgeoning tech startups.