ISLAMABAD: Minister of State for Information Technology Anusha Rahman Tuesday said that Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) would extend full support to National Technology Group (NTG) in its new endeavour to invest in Pakistan.
She was addressing a seminar organized by NTG, a Saudi company, here. NTG has announced to invest millions of dollars in Pakistan, providing a good opportunity to mid-sized IT companies here to grow with access to both capital and new markets.
The seminar was attended by PSEB Managing Director Asim Shahryar Husain, senior management of NTG, Ministry of Information Technology (IT) and PSEB, and many executives of IT companies of Islamabad and Rawalpindi.
Anusha Rahman said her ministry’s vision was to put an accelerated digitization ecosystem in place to enable socio-economic development, to expand Pakistan’s knowledge-based economy, and to spur the economic growth.
She said that Pakistan was an attractive destination for IT and telecom investment because of market’s size and availability of skilled IT resources. Moreover, the ministry had planned to hold second round of spectrum auction later this year, she added.
Asim Shahryar Hussain said that Pakistan’s IT remittances were expected to exceed half a billion dollars during 2014-15 whereas exports were estimated to reach $ 2 billion a year which was growth of 35 percent over last year.
He said Pakistani IT companies had not been able to reach their full potential because of limited financing and marketing.
Earlier, in his presentation, NTG MD Ibrahim Alzeer said that the company was the largest ICT (information and communications technology) conglomerate in Saudi Arabia with annual revenue of more than 2 billion Saudi Riyals and over 20 specialized subsidiaries at home, Gulf countries, Egypt, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Turkey.
This was followed by an address by NTG Chairman Mohammad Al Balla, who said that the group wanted to form a holding company called NTG Pakistan through mergers and acquisitions of selected software houses with AGCN Pakistan.
He said PSEB would be NTG’s strategic partner for company evaluation. The due diligence process would take around six months to one year time, which would be followed by negotiations and acquisitions, he added.
He said after forming NTG Pakistan, the company would hold an Initial Public Offering (IPO) to raise capital through public market. This would provide an opportunity for employees to make money through stock options, he added.
