ISLAMABAD, Aug 5: US vice-president Dick Cheney's former firm, Halliburton, plans to invest $20 million in the next two to three years in Pakistan's IT sector.

Halliburton's business interests in the country were acknowledged officially here on Thursday, almost three years after Pakistan became a leading state in the war against terrorism.

The US vice-president, Dick Cheney, resigned from his post of CEO Halliburton after serving the company from 1995 till 2000. But in the US, Democrats have been suggesting that the former CEO of Halliburton has been influential to win contracts for the Texas-based oil services conglomerate to rebuild Iraq without any bids, an allegation repeatedly denied by the vice president's office.

In Pakistan, Halliburton's Landmark Graphics Division on Thursday announced that it had decided to shift some of its main software development centres in Norway to Pakistan through its majority-owned company LMK Resources, and it was further looking at the possibility of transferring some major projects started elsewhere to Pakistan.

The decision to this effect was announced by Peter Bernard, president of the Landmark Graphics, a division of Halliburton, in a meeting with Federal Minister for Information Technology Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari.

Besides senior officials of the company, IT secretary Khalid Saeed, information technology ministry's member telecom Nooruddin Baqai and Pakistan Software Export Board's managing director Dr Amir Matin were also present during the meeting.

A press release issued by the Press Information Department said Peter Bernard thanked the government of Pakistan for the "support and incentives extended to his company which was rapidly growing in Pakistan in the backdrop of a large number of partnerships secured in recent months with the local players."

"We have already employed about 350 people in Pakistan and are foreseeing a big growth in the coming days," Mr Bernard said. He said his company had found the government incentives and IT policies quite supportive and encouraging and they were planning to invest about $20 million in providing training facilities and other IT-enabled services in Pakistan in the coming two to three years.

Mr Bernard said he expected the business volume to double in the next one-and-a-half-year, which would be a big achievement for the company as it started business in Pakistan only three years ago.

He said LMK Resources, founded in 1994 with a team of 13 professionals, had shown a consistent growth rate of 30 per cent per annum. With acquisition of its majority interest by Halliburton's Landmark Graphics Division in 2001, the company is expanding rapidly and is now an integral part of Halliburton, he added.

Mr Leghari thanked the delegation for showing keen interest in expanding their operations in Pakistan. He said the IT and telecom sector in the country was being driven under the guidance of President Pervez Musharraf and there were no problems whatsoever in extending any support to companies looking forward to investing in Pakistan.

He said his ministry was expecting three to four international players to visit Pakistan next month to look at the possibility of investing in the animation industry, whose turnover the world over had crossed $12 billion mark and was set to grow at a massive scale in the coming years.