In October, Pakistan’s services exports saw a significant rise of 13.43% compared to the same month last year, reaching $688.95 million, up from $607.37 million. This increase highlights the growing demand for the country’s service sector on the global stage.
Growth has resumed since February of this year, primarily due to increased information technology exports, with the exception of August, which experienced a 6.5 percent fall.
According to data released on Wednesday by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, exports in rupee terms increased by 12.34% to Rs 191.3 billion in October compared to Rs170.281 billion in the same month last year.
Compared to the same time in FY24, services exports increased by 7.91 percent, reaching $2.60 billion, up from $2.41 billion.
Pakistan Aims for $15B in IT Exports by 2028
In FY24, services exports increased by only 2.77 percent to $7.8 billion from $7.59 billion the previous year. A 2.78 percent increase from FY22’s $7.10 billion in service exports brought the total to $7.30 billion in FY23.
The data from the State Bank of Pakistan shows that Pakistan’s IT exports increased by 24 percent from $2.59 billion in FY23 to $3.2 billion in FY24.
In the next five years, the government aims to export $15 billion worth of information technology.
Pakistani IT companies have made a lot of progress in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, especially in Saudi Arabia. There has been a steady increase in the demand for information technology services in this area.
The State Bank of Pakistan has raised the permissible retention limit in the Specialised Foreign Currency Accounts of Exporters from 35 to 50 percent. As a result of this change, IT exporters are reinvesting their profits in Pakistan, which has led to a dramatic increase in exports.
Information technology businesses were encouraged to participate in business activities and repatriate their earnings by the constant exchange rate. Simultaneously, compared to the same month previous year, imports of services surged 16.82% to $950.08m, up from $813.32m. From July to October, the import of services climbed by 2.41 percent to $3.59 billion, compared to $3.51 billion in the same period last year.
In comparison to the previous year, the import of services increased by 17.14% to $10.119bn in FY24, from $8.638bn. Due to higher prices, most of the rise in the import of services can be traced back to transportation and travel services.
From July to October of FY25, the service trade deficit decreased 9.64% to $993.24m, down from $1.099bn in the same months last year. As compared to the same month a year ago, the trade imbalance in services rose 26.79 percent to $261.13 million.
