'Big bang' investments from global tech titans still a far cry

FE Team | Published: July 30, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

FE Report
Bangladesh continues to trail behind in netting in "big bang" investments from global technology titans, thanks mainly to the delay in developing the proposed hi-tech park at Kaliakoir.
The Kaliakoir hi-tech park project has not taken off in the last four years, with the government remaining non-responsive to the need for giving a boost to the knowledge economy, the sources said.
"Had the park been in place, we could attract a sizable investment from technology giants such as IBM, Microsoft and Intel," a source said.
The source said: "Unfortunately, the agency, which is responsible for managing the project, does not have adequate expertise to do so. Besides, bureaucratic tangle is impeding the whole process."
The Ministry of Science and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) had moved ahead with the project back in 2003 and appointed the Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) to execute the park project. The government has already acquired a land area of 252 acres at the site and set aside Tk 260 million for the initial land development.
"It's a complex issue â€¦ The ministry needs to understand the different models and what should be the most suitable," the source pointed out.
But an ICT ministry official denied that the ministry lacked expertise in developing such a specialised park.
"The problem also lies in other area. If the project is a public-financed one, it will face similar problem of the authority of project director. But if there is a single development agency to implement the project, this type of problem will disappear," he said, blaming the poor progress due to lack of government policy, rather than the ministry itself.
Another source said the ICT ministry even turned down a request from donor agencies to develop the park as a special economic zone (SEZ), fearing the ownership transfer to another government agency or the private sector.
Officials at the ICT ministry, however, acknowledged that the project implementation continued to get protracted, as the government was yet to adopt a particular model for developing the park.
Experts say the park can be developed using three basic models --maximum government participation, public-private partnership and the exclusive involvement of the private sector.
But the government has not yet formulated a policy on how the private sector can be involved in the development of the technology park, they added.
"Still, the information technology entrepreneurs are waiting for the park to be developed. The cost of delay is enormous. Most importantly, Bangladesh continues to miss out the opportunity to benefit from the global technology boom," an IT expert said.
The sources said the project could be developed with the money earmarked under the Private Sector Development Project (PSDP), financed by multi-donors.
The PSDP is the brainchild of a consortium of donors, including the World Bank (WB), the UK's Department for International Development (DFID), the European Commission, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).
The PSDP is being undertaken with a broader goal of generating large-scale employment, thereby making a significant dent in the country's desperate poverty.