PASHA Central Executive Committee members Salman Dar and Dr. Sonia Saleem held a productive meeting on May 19 with a delegation from the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkiye, known as TOBB, and Turkish software company SANLAB, in a meeting facilitated by the Embassy of Turkiye in Pakistan. The Turkish delegation included Salih Kukrek, Vice Chairman of the Turkish Software Council and Founder of SANLAB, as well as Muhammed Musab Bicer, while Qurrat ul Ain, Vice President of the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry, also participated in the engagement. The meeting brought together senior representatives from both countries’ technology and trade institutions, creating a structured forum for exploring the bilateral technology partnership opportunities that have remained largely underdeveloped between Pakistan and Turkiye despite the two countries’ historically warm diplomatic and economic ties.
The discussion centred on providing the Turkish delegation with a detailed overview of Pakistan’s information technology industry, covering the sector’s scale, capabilities, export performance, and the talent base that has made Pakistani technology companies increasingly competitive in global markets. Potential areas of partnership were examined across information technology services, software development, and digital innovation, with both sides expressing shared interest in building a more structured and sustained framework for bilateral technology engagement. The participation of TOBB, which functions as one of Turkiye’s most influential business and trade representative bodies, alongside a technology company of SANLAB’s standing and the involvement of the Turkish Software Council, signals that the interest in engaging Pakistan’s technology sector extends beyond individual commercial transactions and reflects an institutional recognition on the Turkish side of Pakistan’s potential as a technology services partner.
The meeting’s facilitation by the Embassy of Turkiye in Pakistan adds a further layer of significance, indicating that the diplomatic channel is being actively used to create commercial and technology sector linkages between the two countries. PASHA’s role in representing Pakistan’s information technology industry in this engagement is consistent with its broader mandate to open international markets for its member companies and to position Pakistan as a credible and organised participant in the global technology economy. With both Pakistan and Turkiye investing in their respective digital economies and information technology export agendas, the groundwork laid at this meeting has the potential to develop into formal cooperation frameworks covering joint ventures, technology transfer, software exports, and collaborative digital innovation projects in the months ahead.
Follow the SPIN IDG WhatsApp Channel for updates across the Smart Pakistan Insights Network covering all of Pakistan’s technology ecosystem.
