The government would organise e-commerce fair at union level across the country from next year in a bid to spread the blessings of information technology (IT) among mass people especially to help the small and medium entrepreneurs.
Secretary of Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology Ministry Md Nazrul Islam Khan disclosed this while addressing a seminar on 'E-payment System for SMEs' in the city on Monday.
"We are organising e-commerce fair in upazila level and are getting very good responses from the entrepreneurs and general people. To extend the technological facilities among all levels of people, we will organise the fair at union level from the coming year," he said.
Bangladesh Bank (BB) Deputy Governor Md Abul Quasem, Small and Medium Enterprise Foundation (SMEF) Director General Md Mujibur Rahman addressed the seminar organised by the SMEF with its Managing Director Dr Syed Md Ehsanul Karim in the chair.
Deputy Managing Director of Dutch-Bangla Bank Abul Kashem Md Shirin presented a keynote paper at the seminar.
Mr Khan said the government provided ICT training to thousands of people in the last few years and has started to get results.
"The earning from IT outsourcing has increased manifolds in recent times which is the result of those trainings," he said.
Mr Khan said along with the trainings, the government would provide space facilities to the ICT entrepreneurs from coming years.
"We are setting up an ICT park in Jessore and same parks would be set up at all divisions where entrepreneurs would get space facilities to expand their business," he said.
Mr Khan said his ministry has also taken initiative to set a freelancer institute at Natore which would start its journey soon.
In his keynote paper, Mr Shirin said that e-commerce has expanded tremendously in the last few years though security issues are still big concern to all.
He said more merchants may come forward in developing website to integrate small merchant for whom development of website is not feasible.
"Merchants can expand their business without hiring costly space in a big mall and setting up costly warehouse in a prime location," he added.
Mr Shirin said government may make it mandatory for the utility companies and educational institutions to collect bills/fees using e-commerce.
The BB deputy governor assured the ICT entrepreneurs of providing all out support from the central bank.
