The country's computer and information communication technology (ICT) sector is poised to fetch US$ 5.0 billion in export earnings by the year 2025 buoyed by competitiveness and growing number of ICT-skilled youth, industry insiders said.
Experts said that the recent move to remove complications over the disbursement of the cash incentive for the ICT and computer sector will also boost the exports.
In the last fiscal, the export touched $ 1.0 billion-mark, showing a 66 per cent growth over the last two years.
The $ 1.0 billion industry, comprising ICT and IT enabled services, has seen higher compound annual growth than India and Vietnam in the last couple of years.
"The sector has a huge potential and if proper policy support can be guaranteed, we can cross the $ 5.0 billion export mark," vice president of the Bangladesh Association of Software & Information Services (BASIS) Mushfiqur Rahman told the FE on Wednesday.
About the policy support, he said that there were complications over the cash incentive issue which has been removed this month and "we feel that this will be a big booster for the industry".
"Many entrepreneurs were upset over the long delay of the disbursement of the cash incentive. The exporting companies started to receive the cash incentive money from this month as the problem has been resolved through a meeting of the auditors, central bank officials and industry representatives," he said.
Commenting on the issue, NM Zeaul Alam, senior secretary of the ICT ministry, said the government was committed to provide all kinds of support to the booming industry.
"We are providing at least 18 types of tax-related incentives to this sector," he said. "And we are always eager to discuss other problems with the industry people to tap the real potentials of this sector."
Industry people said that the non-resident Bangladeshi entrepreneurs and the start-ups would be encouraged to invest in Bangladesh targeting the global ICT market to get the benefit of the 10 per cent export subsidy.
As half of the country's population aged below 25 years and the number of university enrolled students crossed 1.6 million annually, the availability of the IT-skilled youth is growing at a much higher rate compared to the other countries in the region, experts said.
According to Tholons, a global research organisation, IT education cost is around 35 per cent less in Bangladesh than India and Philippines. And the industry has a huge potential for employment opportunity also.
According to the BASIS, the sector currently employed 400,000 people and most of them are white-collar professionals.
Apart from this, there are over 650,000 IT free-lancers in the country which is the highest in the world.
The industry comprises of IT products and services including software development and hardware manufacturing, IT help desk, web development, data analysis, 3D imaging and robotics.
Recently, Bangladesh has also entered the hardware export market which is also a key development, Mr. Mushfiqur said.
The usual export destination of the ICT-related products is the USA, the UK and EU.
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