I think Pakistan cannot enter in IT sector in a big way for another 10 years.
I think it will take them nearly 15 years to reach the point where we were five years ago. For this they need to invest in good engineering schools, encourage private investment in engineering colleges, liberalise the telecom industry, increase bandwidth infrastructure ie fiber optic cables, underwater gates etc. Also the government needs to take a proactive step and needs to be business friendly, when I say governments I dont necessarily mean the central govt, but rather state governmnets. These stategovernments can indulge in a healthy competiotion in attracting investments. For this they need to introduce tax sops, free land (I mean large tracts of land), security, stability( A young high earning IT crowd with disposable income will definitely be noticed by the Mullahs and Radical islamists). Malay I am sorry if sound as a regionalist, but the reason why Gujarath, AP,Karnataka and TN attracts hightech investments is due to governments being business friendly,it is like Businesses demand it we do it for them. Most of the executives can park the car right out at the house of whatever CM is in power and can meet them without appointments. So any member from Pakistan can explain how important the role of state governments and how friendly are they towards businesses.
This is because as wages get higher and higher in India over time, companies will try to move to locations where they can access cheaper workers and save a significant amount of money. Pakistan in that order would be the next logical step if they have the required networks and infrastructure at that point.
1.It is a popular notion, that higher the wages become we will loose business. Actuallly the wage increase will hit a ceiling or a peak after which there will be little increase, there is a limit to how much you can increase the wage of a code jockand definitely the IT syndicate will not allow the wage Increase above a point as it will be akin to shooting their own foot.
2. Also many of us dont recognise that Indian IT has matured itself in business process, so much so that they have withered the low dollar values( remember the days in campus where they used to say low dollar means less jobs, actually it is the opposite happening).
3. Another important aspect is efficiency, after years of working they have streamlined their operations and are following more efficient practises. Also they have mastered the practises in several domain that they can be more efficient in business output even with increased paychecks distribution against countries that do work at rock bottom prices than us.
4. Clients will not simply migrate to another country, nor will they transfer such huge infrastructure from someone who has been there for them for 10 years and knows their process in and out and are more efficient due to years of working and modifying the process for them.
In short higher wages nor low dollar is goning to eat away our pie, had it happened some 10 years ago I would have agreed, nowadays our companies have moved on and matured resulting in efficient practises and increased quality in output which will help in whithering away the negativity of the former.
BUT, Pakistan can go for chip fab in a big way. They already have experienced electrical and electronic engineers as these are the core branches any engineering college and nation produces
That is exactly what I am trying to say, they can become masters in certain niche areas of technologies such as chip fab, hardware design and manufacturing but time is running out, they better do it now and soon, already Vietnam and India are pitching in.
IF they can attract companies to set up chip fab plants, it could be their silver bullet like IT was for us.
Also add to that key automotive components, aerospace components, materials, biotechnology .
