10 October 2004	Sunday	24 Shaban 1425

ISLAMABAD, Oct 9: Minister for Information Technology Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari on Saturday said poor standards and lack of credibility in project implementation impeded IT sector growth.

The minister was speaking at a national conference on 'Prospects of IT industry in Pakistan'. The event was organized jointly by the Expert Advisory Cell of the Ministry of Industries, Production and Special Initiatives and the Computer Society of Pakistan.

Mr Leghari said: "The government is trying to rectify the situation by launching projects for assisting IT companies to achieve different levels of quality certification and enrich their profile through business interaction with international giants like Microsoft."

He argued that sometimes the country's image or perception was also cited as one of the barriers affecting not just IT exports but several other sectors. However, the key area was to bring about improvement in quality that could only be made by the company itself, he added.

"The ministry on its part is actively supporting this effort through several projects," he said, adding that the government was providing Rs18.6 million for preparing and certifying five companies to achieve the required certification.

He said the CMM and CMMI were two other certifications which would not only give the companies international stamp of approval but also improve the inherent functioning of these companies and make them more competitive.

"The ministry is already funding two projects worth Rs37 million and Rs31 million to prepare and certify 30 companies to get CMMI Level 2 certification and five companies to get CMM Level 3 or better certification."

He told the participants that another project worth Rs29 million was underway to enable IT companies gain ISO certification.

"So far, 52 companies have achieved certification under this programme while another 20 are in the preparatory process and are expected to gain certification by the end of this calendar year," he added.

Mr Leghari said the ministry had also continued with its successful internship programme to feed the IT industry with a productive workforce and already 1,500 internees had completed their practical training under the programme which was being expanded to include new fields like game development and web designing.

He said most of the companies were unable to get business because they had not established their credibility and the way to do that was through implementing projects.

Only in situations where the scope and complexity of the work is genuinely beyond the capabilities of the local companies, the international company be mandated to subcontract part of the work to local companies.

He cited the PTCL billing project as a case in point as the magnitude and complexity of the scope necessitated that work be given to a firm that had prior experience on that scale, but the value of business to the local industry was made a part of the evaluation criteria and upon award of contract it was mandated that a certain percentage of the software business would be given to a local company.

The minister believed that with measures such as this "we expect that our IT industry would not only grow locally but also be able to generate more exports".

"It is encouraging to note that our IT services industry has shown tremendous growth in the past year with the number of call centre seats increasing from 400 to nearly 2,000 in the past few months," he said, adding that the IT service industry was not necessarily limited to call centre operations and also included business process outsourcing which generates employment for high-end workforce.

He observed that the IT and telecom sector were continuing to offer tremendous opportunities as a temporary slowdown in the aftermath of hyper growth of the 90s was finally fading.

Earlier, PSEB Managing Director Dr Aamir Matin spoke about the projects and programmes undertaken by the board to help local IT companies achieve different levels of quality certification and enhance their profile by taking them to world markets through exhibitions and contacts with IT companies.

In his welcome speech, Experts Advisory Cell's Chief Engineer Zahid Aziz said the IT industry was contributing significantly to the growth of national economy by providing employment, generating revenue and enhancing the country's exports.