Islamabad, 9 December 2022 (TDI): The 21st Asia-Pacific ICT Alliance (APICTA) Awards 2022 kicks off in Islamabad, Pakistan on 7 December 2022. The event will be from 7-12 December.

Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif inaugurated the 21st Asia-Pacific ICT Alliance Awards and addresses the inaugural ceremony.

For the first time in history this year, Pakistan is hosting the Asia-Pacific ICT Alliance Awards, with over 200 foreign delegates from over 16 Asia-Pacific countries.

The APICTA Executive Committee in collaboration with the Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA), Tech Destination Pakistan, the Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB), and the Ministry of IT & Telecommunication (MoITT) set the stage to promote technology innovations and development of ICT solutions via an award program.

Prime Minister’s inaugural address

During the inaugural address, Prime Minister made the case for the digital empowerment of our youth. In an age of technological disruption, our youth needs to focus on big ideas, he said.

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Prime Minister said that without any doubt Pakistan has untapped potential in the Information and Technology sector and praised Pakistani entrepreneurs to promote the IT sector with individual and collective efforts. The government also played a proactive role to support these efforts, he added.

Moreover, he invited foreign IT companies and experts to explore the indigenous talented youth bulge of the country and invest in these sectors.

Prime Minister during the inaugural address emphasized Pakistan’s huge strength to enhance IT exports. He notified that country’s total IT export hovered around 2.6 billion dollars which don’t fully reflect the youth’s talent and potential.

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The government of Pakistan is looking to achieve a target of 5 billion dollars annually for IT export, Prime Minister said. He furthermore invited the IT experts and the youth to come forward and crave a plan to achieve this target.

Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif points up that more than 19000 ICT companies are currently registered in about 160 cities across the country.

Pakistan’s ICT industry is exporting state-of-the-art products and services to 169 countries and we can widen the quantity and quality, Prime Minister.

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