Caretaker Federal Minister for IT and Telecommunication Dr Umar Saif on Thursday said that under the pilot project, 10,000 freelancers would start receiving payments from Pay\u00adPal in February. Addressing a Tech Destination Pakistan event that featured the launch of E-Rozgar Centers in the country, he said, \u201cIn February, we are going to start the first pilot project in which 10,000 freelancers in Pakistan would be able to start receiving pay\u00adments through PayPal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The minister further men\u00adtioned that in March, the pro\u00adgram would be scaled up and everyone would have access to payments from PayPal and Stripe across the country. He clarified that while Pay\u00adPal itself is not coming to Paki\u00adstan, an agreement has been reached where remittances would be channeled through PayPal via a third party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Under the newly devised program, the freelancers will not need to open a PayPal ac\u00adcount. Instead, individuals outside the country will make payments from their PayPal accounts, and the funds will be promptly deposited into the freelancers\u2019 accounts, the min\u00adister explained. The minister said that the government has devised a mechanism for the opening of bank accounts for freelancers. He mentioned that only freelancers would have to provide evidence that they have an account on Fiverr, Upwork, Elance, Toptal, or Crossover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The minister added, \u201cThe IT industry would have a 50 per\u00adcent dollar retention policy, which means that whatever you earn, you can keep 50 per\u00adcent of that in dollars. You will get a debit card from that bank so that you can freely spend that money domestically or in\u00adternationally.\u201d He highlighted that the government has al\u00adlocated enough funds for the establishment of E-Rozgaar centers across the country through a public-private part\u00adnership mode, facilitating an interest-free loan to short\u00adlisted\/qualified individuals and companies. He said that the main objective behind the E-Rozgaar centers is to provide state-of-the-art infra\u00adstructure to enhance freelanc\u00aders\u2019 productivity and bolster Pakistan\u2019s digital ecosystem. Under the program, more than 250 E-Rozgaar Pakistan centers would be established through the public and private sectors. He said that the initia\u00adtive would foster inclusivity in the digital, financial, and eco\u00adnomic sectors by cultivating a culture of freelancing and en\u00adtrepreneurship in Pakistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Currently, he informed that work on almost 40 E-Rozgaar centers is in progress, and it is expected that all these E-Rozgaar centers shall be made operational by 19th February 2024. Dr. Umar Saif said that the first standardized quality test for the 75,000 information technology graduates would be conducted on January 15.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He highlighted significant decisions made to revamp IT education in collaboration with various entities, includ\u00ading HEC, the National Comput\u00ading Accreditation Council, the Examination Testing Council, the Pakistan Software Export Board, and the Pakistan Soft\u00adware Houses Association. Dr. Saif said students who suc\u00adcessfully pass the test will be offered job opportunities through the Industry Place\u00adment Program. He added that funds will be allocated to support special industry courses in universities, aim\u00ading to prepare students for current industry trends and needs. He mentioned that the students would get a stipend from the government, and the companies that give them ap\u00adprenticeships would get cash awards from the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the same time, he said, the IT industry also needs highly skilled manpower, which is certified by international en\u00adterprise platforms Google\u2019s and Microsoft\u2019s, Cisco\u2019s. \u201cSo this year, we\u2019re going to train 16,000 people. These are peo\u00adple who already have IT skills but need international certi\u00adfications in technologies like Salesforce, Cisco, Microsoft, Oracle financials, etc,\u201d he add\u00aded. He said the government, under the SIFC, had taken some radical steps to facilitate the IT firms, which helped in\u00adcrease IT revenue by 13 per\u00adcent during the last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Federal IT Secretary Has\u00adsan Nasir Jami said within a short period, the IT ministry had introduced multiple ini\u00adtiatives to enhance IT exports and facilitate freelancers. He said the IT ministry was com\u00admitted to developing an IT ecosystem and called upon entrepreneurs, students, and developers to take advantage of opportunities available.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Caretaker Federal Minister for IT and Telecommunication Dr Umar Saif on Thursday said that under the pilot project, 10,000 freelancers would start receiving payments from Pay\u00adPal in February. Addressing a … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pcn58.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pcn58.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pcn58.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pcn58.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pcn58.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pcn58.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":184,"href":"https:\/\/pcn58.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182\/revisions\/184"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pcn58.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pcn58.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pcn58.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pcn58.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}