Finance Minister Pitches Pakistan’s Digital Economy Agenda to Global Partners at UNGA in New York

Pakistan’s finance minister used the sidelines of the UN General Assembly to make a case that the country’s digital economy can help carry it beyond stabilisation and towards lasting growth.

Senator Muhammad Aurangzeb spoke at a high-level ministerial dialogue of the Digital Cooperation Organization in New York during the 81st UNGA session. He also held separate talks on financing for aviation, refinery and mining projects.

The digital pitch

Aurangzeb told the delegates that digital transformation can move Pakistan from economic stability to sustainable growth. He named three priorities: digital public infrastructure, cashless payments, and skills and reskilling for digital workers.

Digital public infrastructure refers to shared systems such as digital identity, payment rails and data platforms that government and private services can build on. Cashless payments sit on top of those systems and move everyday transactions off paper.

The reskilling point was aimed at freelancers and other digital workers. The idea is to connect them with higher-value global services so that Pakistani talent moves up from basic tasks to better-paid work.

Virtual assets beyond crypto

The minister also described Pakistan’s work on legislation, oversight and licensing for virtual assets. He argued that their use should not be confined to cryptocurrency.

He pointed to two other uses. One is low-cost remittances. The other, described as a future possibility, is tokenising government debt and real estate. Tokenisation means representing an asset as a digital token on a blockchain so ownership can be recorded and transferred electronically.

The pitch on payments and virtual assets signals that Pakistan wants to be seen as a serious digital economy. Investors and partners will ask for proof. That means a clear virtual asset licensing regime, working digital public infrastructure and measurable results for freelancers, not more announcements. The next real test will be the domestic regulatory steps that follow, since those are the ones Pakistan controls.