Pakistani freelancers have produced export revenue of $397.328 million during FY2021-22 at a growth rate of 2.74%. This comprises IT-related exports of $265.444 million and non-IT-related exports of $131.884 million.
Compared with FY2020-21, Pakistani freelancers successfully generated export revenue of $396.243 million with IT-related exports of $363.064 million while non-IT-related exports of $33.179 million.
When compared with the IT-related exports over the two years, IT-related exports dropped 26.88% during FY2021-22. Conversely, non-IT-related exports have posted a huge increase of 297.492% during FY2021-22.
In addition, IT export remittances worth $265.444 million by Pakistani freelancers during FY 2021-22 amounted to 14.77% of the total ICT export remittances of $2.616 billion during the corresponding period.
Meanwhile, during the first quarter of the fiscal year 2021-22, freelance earnings in Pakistan increased 21.37%, growing from $87.247 million to $105.895 million against the first quarter of the last fiscal year.
It was reported that Out of the entire amount generated through freelance work, the Information Technology (IT) related services remained at $81.523 million, while non-IT earnings amounted to $24.373 million.
Read more: Pakistani freelancers earned $216.78 million export revenue in H1 of FY22
When compared with the last year, the IT earnings showed a drop of a small margin as they earlier stood at $81.676 million. But, the earnings for non-IT work witnessed a whopping increase, moving up from $5.57 million to $24.373 million. The change in the non-IT portion resulted in a decent increase in the overall earnings of freelancers on a year-on-year basis.
Moreover, under the coalition government’s first budget, the government took taxation measures of Rs 440 billion and enforcement measures of Rs 200 billion to achieve the annual target of Rs 7,004 billion. The federal government has put a 0.25 percent tax on the export incomes of IT Services or computer software.
Sources further reported that during the first quarter of the fiscal year 2021-22, IT export remittances of freelancers earned 16.68% of the total ICT export remittances of $635.010 million.
