State Minister for ICT Division Zunaid Ahmed Palak Saturday stressed the need for devising a strategy on unified brand platform to promote country's ICT sector in the international arena, reports BSS.
"There must be a unified brand platform to promote Bangladesh's ICT sector in the international arena. Different organisations have launched campaign separately to brand Bangladesh through their own strategy," he said.
Mr Palak said this while speaking as the chief guest at a workshop on Brand Bangladesh at a local hotel Saturday. It was also addressed, among others, by secretary of the ministry Shyam Sundar Sikder, executive director of Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) SM Ashraful Islam, and project director Rezaul Karim. A large number of foreign and local IT experts attended the function.
The state minister sought cooperation from the Information Technology (IT) experts as well IT organisations to devise a unified brand strategy.
"The government is targetting an increase in ICT export to at least US$ 1.0 billion by 2018 from the present US$ 250 million with a focus on Vision-2021 announced by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on December 12, 2008," he said.
Mr Palak said the government is setting up a Hi-Tech and Software Park side by side with expanding the connectivity up to the union level to materialise Digital Bangladesh with the target to turn the country into a middle income country by 2021.
The state minister said the government has fixed a target to ensure ICT's contribution to the economy by at least two per cent by 2017.
Referring to the 124 million mobile phone users, Mr Palak said the government has set up over 5,000 digital centres including 4,547 Union Digital Centres (UDCs) across the country.
"The government is making its service into e- services and it has already digitised 100 services to ensure people's easy access to it."
The state minister said the software export saw a robust growth during the last few years with increasing its export to US$ 124.72 million in 2013-2014 fiscal year.
The US, UK, Canada, Japan, Australia and Europe are the major importers of Bangladesh's software products, he said.
