Pakistan IT Industry Association (P@SHA) has met the Secretary IT of Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) to discuss a master plan for the region’s IT sector, according to a post on its LinkedIn page. The two sides talked about regional challenges, and the P@SHA team presented its GB IT and IT-enabled Services (ITeS) Sector Diagnostic Report to the secretary. It also proposed a master plan for GB’s digital economy that covers improving connectivity, infrastructure, workforce readiness, and market access. The P@SHA delegation was led by Muhammad Zohaib Khan, Central Executive Committee (CEC) member and Chair of the Special Initiatives Committee, and included Nadia Iqbal, a former CEC member, Kashoon Leeza, Director Policy and Strategic Initiatives, Kashif Hussain, Research Lead, and Syeda Safa H., Lead Skills Development. Representatives of P@SHA member companies based in GB also took part.
According to P@SHA, the secretary assured the association of his full cooperation in addressing the challenges raised and committed to working closely with it to implement the master plan. The association said it remains committed to inclusive, region-wide growth of Pakistan’s tech sector so that no region is left behind in the digital economy. The post does not describe the contents of the proposed master plan in detail, set out a timeline or budget, or say which government departments would carry out its recommendations, so the next steps depend on further discussion between P@SHA and the GB government. The meeting follows the release of the diagnostic report in November 2025, which P@SHA prepared with the GB IT Department and the GB Software Houses Association.
The report gave the first detailed picture of the region’s technology sector. It estimated that GB’s IT and ITeS sector earns between $15 million and $18 million a year, with about 120 active IT companies producing roughly $3.5 million and an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 freelancers earning most of the rest, according to coverage of the report by Business Recorder and Daily Times. About 300 companies are registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, though only 100 to 120 are believed to be active, and most are small firms with fewer than 50 employees. The report credits the region’s high literacy rate and a motivated pool of young people, but it also points to gaps in advanced IT skills and mentorship, and it notes that before 2018 GB had virtually no dedicated IT parks, co-working spaces, or incubators.
Infrastructure is the main constraint named in the report. It found that nearly 88 percent of companies report disruptions from power outages and that unstable broadband affects daily operations, and it recommended urgent improvements in electricity and telecommunications. Stakeholders also floated the idea of an IT special economic zone in GB to attract investment. These issues were raised by the GB Software Houses Association last year when it appealed to P@SHA, the Ministry of IT and Telecommunication, and the Special Communications Organization (SCO) to address outages that were disrupting companies and freelancers who work entirely online. The proposed master plan builds on those findings by linking connectivity and infrastructure with skills and market access, which are the areas where freelancers and small firms in remote districts face the most difficulty in reaching foreign clients.
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