need your advice

I m a Sri lankan male working for a IT company in Qatar as IT Technical Support Assistant. i m really intrested in IT, my most favorite subject is software development, but here in Qatar i find that there is no market for software ,what i feel is there is market for networking and hardware. I choose this job cause i don't have any other choice.now i m doing only technical work. i have applied for so many software jobs but i didn't get a chance of going to software related job interview even, so i just want to know as i m mostly into software in there any recognized qualification and exams for software developers.

i need ur advice. i m still using visual basic 6.0
sql server and crystal reports. i have done so much
of software using this tools. as there are lot of IT experts in QL. please give ur advice, i need to change my job and move into my most favorite job software development as i can do many thing in the software development as i m keenly intrested,

Thank you
Angelo