Pakistan is one of the most exciting technology ecosystems globally right now, attracting more capital at a faster pace than many other emerging markets,” said Ben Harburg – managing partner of MSA Capital –
According to Gwadar Pro, he was addressing a seminar titled “China-Pakistan: The Way Forward” hosted by Center for China and Globalization (CCG), a Chinese non-governmental think tank based in Beijing. “Actually my firm is one of the very few firms of China heritage that have investments in Pakistan and as a firm, one of our key impetus is how do we apply Chinese models in technology ecosystem to the Pakistani market?”, he added.
Take IT industry as an example. As for the edge of Pakistan’s IT industry, Badar U Zaman, Commercial Counsellor of Embassy of Pakistan in Beijing, thinks the software development cost in Pakistan is quite reasonable. Pakistan’s IT exports are increasing very fast. “Our total service exports have crossed $6 billion. And in that, IT exports have crossed $2 billion. We have a fairly young population. 70 % of our population is younger than the age of 35. They’re good at English speaking. We have got many universities that teach IT and our IT engineers are working all over the globe. There are many, many new software houses that are coming,” Badar noted. Two years or so ago, there was about $10 million of VC investment going into the Pakistani technology ecosystem.
