SLASSCOM targets $5 bln revenue by 2022; PB says make it by 2020
The Sri Lanka Association of Software and Services Companies (SLASSCOM) is targeting for IT companies to achieve US$5 billion revenue by 2022. However Treasury Secretary P.. Jayasundara took a step further by suggesting that this target should be reached by 2020, at the launch of the Sri Lanka’s first IT/BPO Industry 2014 Review held at the Institute of Policy Studies in Colombo last week.
Adding to that, Dr. Jayasundara said, “$5 billion is the size of the apparel industry today which the country is planning to achieve $10 billion by 2020.
The country’s vision is to line up the apparel manufacturers among the top 10 global apparel manufacturers. The country is also looking at several other export activities and equally a large scale of import substitution activities this year because the scales have grown. In the meantime the country is also looking for $5 billion tourism and $12 to 15 billion overseas remittance coming into the country which has already achieved $7 billion.”
He said President Mahinda Rajapaksa, also Finance Minister, will be presenting the consecutive 10th budget in November this year with a credible (economic success) story to tell. “If you read any of the past 10 budgets, the starting point is much better than the closing point. Whereas in this successive 10th year, the closing point is much stronger than the point where we started and it’s absolutely credible”.
The President’s vision is to make Sri Lanka an advanced middle income country by 2020 surpassing $8500 per capita income, free of poverty, much more sophisticated infrastructure, transforming the education system to a much more skillful technology sensitive and a country which is much more unique in terms of its biodiversity and environment, he noted.
Speaking to the Business Times on the sidelines on the launch, SLASSCOM Chairman Madhu Ratnayake said, “The IT sector in the country is getting into more innovation and product engineering. What we are focusing is to create more entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka where people can do product engineering, looking at the regional and national problems and coming up with technology solutions. Innovation driven product engineering is what we are looking as a future goal which is where the highest value gain is”.
He noted that it is possible to achieve $5 billion by 2020 if one does the right things like other countries. Countries like Philippines, Pakistan and Israel have made a similar journey like Sri Lanka. Because the global market is very strong about $1.2 trillion, there is huge outsourcing and product engineering opportunity and its supply constraint.
“There aren’t enough people; we need more trained workers (in this sector). The female component of the IT workforce last year at 29 per cent is fairly a big number in the region. The IT sector has already picked up, the last five years and in the field started growing and now it is at a high growth pace,” he added.