330 interns placed into IT industry this year
By Khalid Amin

ISLAMABAD—Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) has placed around 330 graduates into the industry during this fiscal year to enhance the influx of quality graduates into the local IT companies.
This year, with release of funding, the number of trainings and interns are expected to rise several folds, said an official at PSEB Sunday. The official said during last year, 69 professionals participated in trainings and 527 interns were placed due to paucity of funds under PSEB-HEC joint programme.
Giving further details, the official said apprenticeship programmes have been approved for 738 apprentices in seven companies while a specialized training grant has been approved for Buraq Integrated Solutions under PSEB Capacity Building Programme. He said PSEB, whic promotes the image of the Pakistan IT industry in key markets abroad and enables trade interaction with international parties, has supported participation of 47 member companies in five international tradeshows to date in the current fiscal year.
The official said todate in the current fiscal year, PSEB has run eight international promotional campaigns and added most potential customers and investors contact PSEB member companies directly after getting information from the PSEB website which receives a million hits each month with 70 per cent of the hits received from overseas. Elaborating further, he said in conjunction with stakeholders, PSEB has developed a vision and strategic roadmap to fast track IT industry growth.
A nationwide census of IT companies was conducted last year, a report estimating total industry size was prepared, a four year strategic framework was formulated, and an inter-departmental committee was formulated to provide more accurate revenue figures. The Gartner Group Report on the Pakistan IT industry is being revised in light of feedback from Ministry of IT, and other stakeholders - including the PSEB Strategy and Research team. He said PSEB also plans to build IT Parks in different cities and currently operates over 750,000 square feet of Software Technology Parks (STP) in eleven buildings across the country.
PSEB is facilitating the establishment of another private sector STP (Software Technology Park) in Rawalpindi.
The official said PSEB has submitted a budgetary proposal to Ministry of Information Technology for reduction of custom tariffs on a large number of items required by the industry.
It has again invited IT trade bodies, FPCCI and BOI to review and provide feedback on the current IT Policy which the Ministry of IT seeks to revise. As yet feedback on this important strategic document has only been received from ACCO and PCA.