The Ukrainian IT industry in 2022 will be able to reach the indicators of 2021, provided that the current situation does not change dramatically for the worse, Andriy Yavorsky, Senior Vice President for Strategy and Technology at the Ukrainian IT company GlobalLogic, said.
According to him, in 2021, the IT sector, according to the reports of the Ministry of Economy, brought Ukraine about $6.7 billion in export earnings, and for the first quarter of 2022, according to the IT Association, about $2 billion, which would show a possible growth in IT -industry by 28-30%, if the aggravation of the military conflict had not begun.
“If there was no war, we would expect that each next quarter would be a little more than the previous one, and as a result, this year the IT industry would have to accumulate about $ 8.5 billion in export earnings (…) Due to the situation With the war, we can assume that the IT business has sunk by 5-10%,” Yavorsky said during an online meeting of the IT Media Club on Wednesday.
He noted that the IT business includes export-oriented and domestic industries, as well as telecom operators.
According to him, after the start of active hostilities on the territory of Ukraine, the export IT industry of the country sank by 5%, the domestic one even more, “but it did not account for a very large market share.
“Conventionally, the entire IT industry has fallen by 10 percent. Accordingly, it was $2 billion – now $1.7-1.8 billion. If everything remains stable, we do not expect further decline. But it is possible – the flow of new projects is rather weak. If If we look pessimistically, the industry will generate about $7 billion by the end of the year, but I still want to believe that we will make not $7 billion, but $7.5 billion,” the top manager summed up.
As reported, the Ukrainian IT company GlobalLogic notes a 2-fold reduction in the number of vacancies in the IT market of Ukraine since the beginning of the active phase of hostilities.
IT-company “GlobalLogic Ukraine” is the largest software developer in Ukraine. It has offices and more than 4.5 thousand specialists in Kyiv, Kharkov, Lvov and Nikolaev.
Premier of Ukraine Oleksiy Honcharuk has proposed setting up Fund of Human Capital Development for IT sector to enable it manage sector on its own. “The problem in the lack of staff…We hope to establish conditions for the sector to work faster,” Honcharuk said during the meeting of the government with export IT industry in Kyiv on Wednesday.
According to the premier, the means of this fund will be forwarded for scholarships of talented students, grants for young scientists and the creation of educational infrastructure.
Head of State Tax Service Serhiy Verlanov reported that a special taxation option for individuals in IT sector should be introduced.
In addition to the 5% single tax, 1.5% military tax and unified social tax from two minimum wages, the head of the service suggests introducing a tax on the development of human capital. It will be administered by the tax service and transferred to sector managed-by fund, and its rate will be gradually raised from 1% in 2020 to 5% in 2024.
According to Verlanov, this taxation option will give more guarantees and advantages, however, the transition to it is voluntary, and those who wish can stay on today’s third form of simplified taxation.
The premier has said the government expects that this will allow in 10 years to increase the export of the IT from $3 billion up to $10 billion, the number of workers in this sphere of services will increase from 165,000 to 650,000 people.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman has said that the growth of the IT sector in Ukraine last year was 20%. He said that the similar growth is planned for this year. “In 2017, the IT industry brought $3.6 billion of export revenue to the country. The share of the IT sector of the country’s GDP is around 3.4%. As of early 2018, over 120,000 employees and engineers worked in the sector, and their number is permanently growing,” he wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. He also said that in May it is planned to hold a new ‘deregulation’ meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers: “We will continue annulling piles of unnecessary regulations and approve the required decisions, first of all, for the IT sector.”
