On April 14, Anatoly Motkin at a special panel “How tech export can transform Central Asia” at the Atlantic Council presented a report by StrategEast on strategies for developing IT exports in the region.
The first regional report and policy recommendations, “The Billion in the Distance: Central Asian IT Exports and Strategies for Growing Them,” prepared with the support of USAID and EBRD was published in March 2023. It became the first in-depth study to examine the Central Asian region’s export-oriented IT as a whole. The report’s analysis and recommendations will help country governments, international development agencies and financial institutions, global and local IT players find the right tools to grow an export-oriented IT industry in the Central Asian region.
The panel discussion participants included Arkadiy Dobkin, Chairman of the Board, CEO, and President at EPAM Systems, Inc.; Anatoly Motkin, President of StrategEast; Elena Son, Executive Director, American-Uzbekistan Chamber of Commerce, US-Kyrgyzstan Business Council, US-Tajikistan Business Council; Sarah Wall, Project Director, Future Growth Initiative, Palladium. The meeting was moderated by Suriya Evans-Pritchard Jayanti, nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.
In her speech, Sara Wall noted that around the world, IT development faces the same challenge: governments often do not have time to develop policies as quickly as the IT industry develops.
Arkadiy Dobkin singled out several factors that can be decisive when attracting clients to Central Asia: development of local talents, international positioning of the region as a trusted IT destination, geopolitical stability.
Elena Son noted security as the main element that will help develop IT in the region. In her opinion, the Central Asian countries should cooperate with the US government in order to achieve a high level of both security and physical security, and this will attract more US companies to the region.
In closing, Anatoly Motkin noted: “The Central Asian region has all necessary conditions to become a global digital hub integrated into the US digital supply chain. The US government should make all the necessary efforts to encourage the American private sector to invest funds and knowledge into this important region.”
The video recording of the discussion is available here.
