"Now everything is delayed," - GlobalLogic vice president on permission for IT specialists to travel abroad

If the issue of booking IT specialists, their departure abroad, the NBU's currency policy and tax residency is not resolved, the growth of the IT industry will slow down, and the amount of export revenues will decrease. This was stated on July 14 at the IT Media Club by Andrey Yavorsky, senior vice president for strategy and technology at GlobalLogic.

The main thing

Large amounts of export revenues were associated only with a successful first quarter, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to attract new customers further. It is likely that the IT industry will generate about.7 billion in export revenues this year, suggests Andrey Yavorsky. This is almost identical to last year's figures.

"Under optimal circumstances,we expected the industry to grow to 8 8-8.5 billion. However, I think we will remain at the same level as we were last year," explains Yavorsky.

The expert notes that now the industry is "reaping the benefits of a successful first quarter." However, there is already a natural outflow of Business: old projects are being completed, and new ones are not easy to find.

"If we fail to solve the problem of departure, security and a number of other pressing issues, it will be more difficult for people to find new tasks. Industry growth will slow down, " says Yavorsky.

At the same time, according to the representative of GlobalLogic, so far there are no significant changes in the issues of business travel for IT specialists, their booking. There are also no changes regarding the NBU's monetary policy and the acquisition of tax residency for temporarily displaced persons in other countries.

The draft laws submitted by individual deputies of the Verkhovna Rada are not very effective. In the Parliament, they can be considered for a very long time, the expert notes.

"In the draft law on the departure of IT specialists abroad, which was most discussed, they found shortcomings and sent it for revision. The bill is a good long-term solution, but now the industries need something more effective, something that will work, conditionally, next week. This is the implementation of the Cabinet resolution. I hope that over the next few weeks we will get a clear mechanism for traveling abroad in order to develop our business. However, so far everything has been delayed," Yavorsky summed up.

Details

For 5 months of 2022, the export of IT services increased by 27% compared to the same period last year. In addition, this year the export of IT services accounted for 46% of total exports, while in 2021 this figure was 37%.

A number of large Ukrainian IT companies, in particular SoftServe, GlobalLogic and others, are in favor of allowing IT specialists to travel abroad.

In early March, the minister of digital transformation of Ukraine Mikhail Fedorov published a letter urging not to mobilize IT specialists into the ranks of the Armed Forces, because they are involved in cyber support to the invaders. What lawyers, economists and the Ministry of digital development team say, DOU wrote here.

Zhanna Kapitsa, CEO of the Transcarpathian IT cluster, spoke about booking IT specialists in an interview with DOU. According to her, the cluster already has 50 successful cases, but the procedure is complicated.

DOU separately asked the companies about their dialogue with the authorities regarding booking specialists. We published their comments, as well as analysis from lawyers and responses from the Ministry of digital transformation here.

According to the Ukraine IT Report 2021, as of the beginning of this year, 285 thousand IT specialists worked in Ukraine. Last year, the IT industry brought the country 4% of GDP.