Over half the firms in the sector are building and exporting software products rather than providing services such as low-end call centres, they said.
The services sector is also dominated by knowledge services such as financial, medical and legal which offer high-end value addition, according to a new survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers.
"We've seen very good growth in software exports rather than software-enabled services, also known as ITES (information technology enabled services), which has seen little growth," said Janaka Ratnayake, chairman of the Export Development Board.
"ICT export growth is remarkable - that is the future of our exports.
"
Mano Sekaram, chairman of the EDB's advisory committee for the ICT and BPO sectors, said in Sri Lanka over half the companies in the sector were building software products, unlike in India where 80 percent provided software services.
"It means they have high value of returns.
So we're moving into value addition.
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Although ITES expo