Freelance woes

For Pakistani freelancers, the simple task of receiving payments for their work is a challenge. Freelancers are often completing tasks for foreign clients and using local banks to process payments from abroad can be an arduous task. PayPal and other global payment processing services are still not accessible for most of our freelancers, unlike their counterparts in Sri Lanka and Africa. Despite ranking among the world’s top freelancer markets, PayPal and other companies like it have still not added Pakistan to its queue of registered nations.

Amidst the current economic crisis, freelancing is emerging as an important source of forex. To that end, facilitating a smooth payment mechanism for our freelancers ought to be a top priority. Sadly, it appears that the IT ministry went into hibernation after the arrival of Amazon in Pakistan as it has done little to encourage IT investment and exports since.

Mohsin Mumtaz

Chiniot