The government has met the long-standing request of independent contractors, allowing them to use the international gateway to send money back to their families abroad.
In an interview with the media, Dr. Umar Saif, the acting federal minister for information technology and telecommunication, disclosed this.
The minister stated that to establish Pakistan as a “Tech Destination,” the ministry plans to introduce several digital projects the next week, one of which is to direct remittances through PayPal. There isn’t a financial tool accessible right now to make payments easier.
The minister announced that although an agreement has been struck, remittances from PayPal will be routed through a third party rather than PayPal coming to Pakistan. He stated that January 11 is the official date of PayPal launch in Pakistan.
While highlighting the steps the government has taken to support the IT and telecom sector’s exports, the minister noted that although the industry parks a significant portion of its exports outside of the nation to pay the salaries of its foreign employees placed with foreign clients and incur monthly expenses for cloud hosting, marketing, and sales on platforms like Google, Amazon, LinkedIn, etc., the actual figure is closer to $5 billion.
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“We collaborated with the State Bank and the SIFC to implement a significant policy change that permits IT companies to retain fifty percent of their export earnings in US dollars in a Pakistani account and to use that amount for any overseas expenses without limitations,” the minister stated.
He also mentioned that our export revenue increased by 13% in only a single month and that IT companies are starting to send money home.
