IT industry holds much potential for future growth

In a week when Pakistanis have seen the powerful aftereffects of yet another oil price increase, and the reality of a slowing economy - including lethargic export growth - is all around, the future of the country's IT sector has yet again surfaced as a powerful reminder of an area for potential growth.

In south Asian terms, the size of Pakistan's IT sector gets easily paled by comparison to the gigantic size of the IT industry in neighbouring India, where a transformation of different geographical regions took place simply because of the so-called 'computer techees'.

And yet, Pakistan has tried for years but failed to see its own IT industry rise to much bigger proportions.

In the most visible such example, IT related software exports have remained far from rising in size to generate more export income - with estimates of annual software exports hovering around $100 million.

While India began the development of its IT sector long before, Pakistan must reconcile itself with the difficulty of facing stiff competition as a relative newcomer.

For Pakistan, the answers to its IT related dilemma are not easy. Part of the challenge is that government policies in the country have chronically lagged behind the changing times.

Hence, in spite of official claims to be setting the foundation for a thriving IT industry, the truth is that Pakistan's government suffers from the challenge of turning its ambitions into reality.

For years, Pakistan's successive governments have claimed that they are eager to seek investors in the IT sector.

Successive regimes have also announced incentives ranging from allocation of space for IT companies producing software to tax relief.

And yet, the failure of successive governments to oversee a significant rise in investments, in itself suggests that investors are just not eager to accept government policies as enough of an assurance to step in robustly.

At the same time, the future of Pakistan IT sector can just not be detached from some of the fundamental failures that affect Pakistan as a whole.

The most vital among such challenges is Pakistan's educational sector which leaves behind a major gap in areas such as improving the quality of IT education.

Even subjects like mathematics and physics which are relevant to engineering sciences as well as IT are never assured to be taught in line with globally accepted standards.

Pakistan pays much lip service to globally accepted norms but has done little to improve its performance in areas such as tackling piracy of software.

Across Pakistan, there is widespread availability of software that is pirated, and little evidence of manufacturers and sellers of such software being taken to task.

The need to enforce such norms is indeed without any dispute especially if Pakistan is keen to become a world class country with a top rate repute as a centre of software manufacturing and IT related services.

Perhaps one way to go forward is simply to create a network of well publicised success stories so that Pakistan's position as a centre of IT becomes well documented.

Pakistan's success in turning around the outlook for its IT sector, as it seeks to promote a large variety of other sectors, are central to the country's economic interests.

One way to make such a profound and fundamental change must eventually come from forcing such issues to become central to public debate as the country builds for itself a characteristically new vision.

Without such a fundamental shift in the way Pakistan does its business, the future promises to be tragically little different than a largely unimpressive past.

The writer is a journalist based in Pakistan.