LAHORE, Jan 6: Shortage of IT graduates in the country may hamper rapid growth of IT industry in the upcoming years. This was stated by CEO of a software developer firm Salim Ghauri at a press conference on Friday. “I can foresee tremendous growth of IT industry in Pakistan during 2006-08 with high job demand,” he said. He pointed out that the industry had been highlighting the possibility of shortage of labour for the last two years.

He said the IT industry was booming across the world at present, and Pakistan was getting good amount of business. “I see further growth in the business some two years down the line,” he said.

He said Pakistani companies were also getting business other than software upgradation, and the companies were involved in product development as well. Similarly, he said, the business of call centre was growing very fast.

When asked to compare Pakistan’s IT sector with that of India, he said: “The IT companies in Pakistan are charging higher price than Indian companies due to high focus on quality.”

According to him, there was no doubt that Pakistan entered the IT industry some 20 years after India, but still the quality of work being offered by Pakistan was far price-worthy than India.

Regarding the image of the country, he said the government had done a lot on this front, but still the private sector should come forward and help the government in this regard.

“People in the private sector are ambassadors of the country, and they should play their due role,” he said. He said his company would be introducing some training programmes in future in order to meet labour shortage for the industry.