Our IT export should exceed garment export: Joy

REITERATING his commitment to further help flourish country’s ICT sector, prime minister’s information and communication technology affairs adviser Sajeeb Wazed Joy on Wednesday said it is his personal goal to make Bangladesh’s IT export exceeding its garment export.
‘I feel honoured to bring the vision 2021 to light. In just six years, we have transformed the country. Six years ago, there was nothing digital in Bangladesh. Our internet penetration was just .3 per cent. Today it has crossed 30 per cent. We have laid six submarine cables as backup so that our internet connectivity does not get cut off,’ he said. Joy came up with the observation while inaugurating BPO Summit, 2015 at city’s Hotel Sonargaon this morning. Organised by ICT Division and BACCO, Bangladesh Association of Call Centre and Outsourcing, the function was presided over by state minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak, MP.
FBCCI president Abdul Matlub Ahmed, ICT secretary Shyam Sunder Sikder, Imran Ahmed, MP, chairman of parliamentary standing committee on the ministry of posts, telecommunications and information technology ministry and WITSA chairman Santiago Gutierrez addressed the function, among others.
‘Six years ago, when we started our journey of Digital Bangladesh, the total export from the ICT sector was 26 million dollars, total employment in the ICT sector was a couple of thousand programmers only. Now the yearly export from the ICT sector has crossed 300 million dollars, around two lakh jobs have been generated in this sector, of which more than 25 thousand employments have been generated in this Business Process Outsourcing sector. There was no sector called BPO six years ago in Bangladesh,’ Joy said.
Narrating the initial struggle of the present government for establishing IT industry in the country, the young adviser said, ‘There was no facility in Bangladesh to establish BPO sector six years ago. We didn’t have power, we didn’t have connectivity. The price of internet was so high that only the big companies could afford that.’

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