Pakistan to hold inaugural Digital Foreign Direct Investment Forum today
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will hold a two-day inaugural Digital Foreign Direct Investment (DFDI) Forum 2025 starting today, Tuesday, as it aims to showcase its digital economy potential, attract foreign funding and promote technology exchanges.
The DFDI will be hosted in Pakistan's capital from April 29-30 and is being organized by the Pakistani IT and Telecommunication ministry in collaboration with the Digital Cooperation Organization (DCO). Over 400 delegates and more than 200 IT and telecom companies will attend the event from over 30 countries.
The forum will aim to bring together global policymakers to discuss frameworks that enhance digital infrastructure, adoption and exports across the 16 DCO member states. It will showcase the readiness of DCO member states, with Pakistan as the host, for digital investment by leveraging their skilled talent, supportive policies, and high-growth sectors such as fintech, AI and cybersecurity.
'We will be welcoming around 100 plus international delegates,' Pakistan's IT Minister Shaza Fatima Khawaja told reporters at a briefing about the event on Monday. 'We will be having over 10 ministers and vice ministers of IT and other allied ministries from different countries.'
The minister said more than 30 investors, both national and international, will participate in the event. She noted that Pakistan's IT industry has been growing at a 'reasonably fast pace,' adding that the country has seen an export growth between 24 percent to 27 percent annually.
'And we're trying to actually increase the base further up, trying to hit the target of $4 billion hopefully this year,' she said. 'Last year it was $3.2 billion.'
As of 2025, Internet penetration in Pakistan was estimated at 58.4 percent, as per the IT ministry, with 142 million Internet users in a population of over 240 million. Mobile penetration is at 79.4 percent, including 72.99 million smartphone users.
Pakistan also has an over $3 billion IT export market, with IT exports reaching $1.86 billion in the first half of fiscal year 2024-25, up 28.04 percent year-on-year. Its exports grew 26 percent in the first half of the current fiscal year, reaching $300 million monthly.
But the forum is being held as digital media in Pakistan has been muffled with measures by telecom authorities to slow down Internet speeds and restrict VPN use while social media platform X has been blocked for over a year. Earlier this year, parliament approved a law to regulate social media content that rights activists and experts widely say is aimed at curbing press freedom and controlling the digital landscape. The government denies this.
Last year, the Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA) said Pakistan's economy could lose up to $300 million due to Internet disruptions caused by the imposition of a national firewall to monitor and regulate content and social media platforms. The government denies the use of the firewall for censorship.
Khawaja, however, said the government genuinely feels that the freedom Pakistani citizens generally have with regard to Internet usage is 'quite high.'
'Actually except for X that you mentioned, there is no platform that is not accessible to anyone,' she said. 'There are no, per se, restrictions on the usage.'
Pakistan will assume the DCO's presidency in 2026, Khawaja said.
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