Prioritising the IT sector

At a time when the digital age has further advanced into one of artificial intelligence (AI), talking of the importance of adopting information and communication technology (ICT), in short, IT, for overall economic growth is a no-brainer. The issue should be one of assessing where the country at the moment stands vis-à-vis the rest of the world in the development and use of IT in every sphere of social and economic activity and what the policies of the government and other stakeholders are on going further forward. An important marker of progress in this connection is the country's Digital Readiness Indicator. According to the 14th edition of the index, as unveiled by the Kuwait-based global logistics company, Agility, last year (2023), the country's score was better than previous years'. Actually, its position went four notches up to 35th among the 50 most promising emerging logistics markets in the world. But in the South Asian context, it still lagged behind its close neighbours including India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Notably, the digital readiness indicator measures the potential and progress of an emerging digitally-led, skills-rich, innovation-oriented and sustainable economy. Evidently, in the spirit of its 'Smart Bangladesh Vision 2021', the government will be required to do whatever is necessary to develop the country's IT sector. According to the estimate of the Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS), the country's annual IT export stands at US$1.5 billion. But compared to its next-door neighbour, India's earning of US$227 billion this is insignificant. Pakistan, another South Asian nation, on the other hand, earned US$2.62 billion. The main driver of Bangladesh's IT-related export is computer data processing and hosting services as well as software exports. Obviously, local entrepreneurs have been getting a good number of orders for back-office operations including data entry, image processing, graphic design, animation and also locally produced software.
Understandably, local entrepreneurs in the IT sector have meanwhile earned quite a reputation so that their services and products are able to get a niche in the international IT market. Even so, there is no room for complacency. It is against this backdrop that a research report titled, 'ICT adoption and its effects on the economic growth of Bangladesh: A time series analysis' was recently published in the World Scientific, a Singapore-based academic publisher of scientific and technical books and journals. Based on secondary data spanning a period of about two decades between 2002 and 2021, the study focused on IT's impact on Bangladesh's economic development. Referring to Bangladesh's current rate of GDP growth at 6.5 per cent, the study report attributed much of what has been achieved to the adoption and integration of information and communication technology across different sectors of the economy. The research report stressed the obvious such as wooing more FDI, building a robust IT infrastructure and generously investing in training so as to create a large army of talented IT professionals in the country. The need for these vital ingredients for the growth of IT sector cannot be overemphasised.
In fact, building a strong export-oriented IT sector should be a priority, if only to diversify the country's export basket and get around its present predicament of a Readymade Garment (RMG)-based one. The aim ought to be to develop the sector in such a way that IT's presence in economy and society becomes overarching. It holds out the promise of an inclusive society. Bangladesh's aim should be to reach that goal.