April 20, 2008	Sunday	Rabi-us-Sani 13, 1429

ISLAMABAD, April 19: The Pakistan Software Export Board is all set to explore opportunities in the information technology (IT) market in Canada, said PSEB Manager Director Yousaf Hussain here on Saturday.

Targeting Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto as its prospective business and IT hub, the PSEB was organising meetings in Canada from April 21-30.

These meetings were being organised in association with Canada Pakistan Business Council, Export Development Canada, Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, The Indus Entrepreneur and Royal Bank of Canada.

The PSEB official stated that the meetings would enable Pakistani IT companies to learn from successful experiences of their counterparts and expand their presence globally.

“These meetings will provide an international platform for the member IT companies to interact with the Canadian market. The PSEB would showcase the success of local IT industry to the international investors to attract them to open development centres in Pakistan,” said Mr Hussain.

With lucrative government incentives, top of the line IT infrastructure and competitive workforce, Pakistan was emerging as a destination of choice for global outsourcing vendors, he said.

The PSEB delegation comprised 21 member companies, which are renowned in their respective areas of expertise particularly in software/hardware development, web applications, graphics, animation multimedia, and other business process management services.

The official said that according to Centre for Outsourcing Research & Education Canada, Canada’s IT infrastructure and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) was worth more than $50 billion.