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Stakeholders must work jointly to achieve Smart Bangladesh: Speakers

Staff Correspondent
19 Mar 2023 00:00:00 | Update: 18 Mar 2023 23:25:42
Stakeholders must work jointly to achieve Smart Bangladesh: Speakers
Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh officials and guests at a conference in Dhaka on Saturday – Courtesy Photo

The achievement of a trillion-dollar-plus economy requires all stakeholders to work together to address the issues and to take bold steps and make necessary policy reforms, speakers said at a conference on Saturday.

Speakers came up with the suggestion at a conference organised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh (ICAB) on “Chartered Accountants’ Role in Achieving Smart Bangladesh by 2041” at a hotel in Dhaka on Saturday, said a press release.

They have come up with several recommendations for policy reformations in the areas like ensuring quality education and setting up of technical schools, ensuring digital education, development of IT infrastructure, setting up of bonded warehouses, new employment creation, the establishment of export potential industries, digitisation of tax administration, an increase of exports and remittances, paperless office and big data protection, increase of foreign direct investment, innovative economy, etc.

In a video message, Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi congratulated ICAB and said, to build smart Bangladesh, ICAB’s can play a vital role as financial sector needs to vibrant and transparent and good governance are our special needs.

Speakers also demanded float bonds for various large infrastructure projects to reduce the pressure on foreign exchange while financing such projects enhancing the growth of the private sector, said a press release.

Presently, the manufacturing and other essential goods importers are suffering much due to limited access to L/C opening that holds back the growth potential of the country, they opined.

Md Abul Kalam Azad, special envoy of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) Presidency was present at the event as the chief guest and Kamal Quadir, chief executive officer of bKash as the special guest.

ICAB President Md Moniruzzaman, Vice President MBM Lutful Hadee and ICAB Chief Executive Officer Shubhashish Bose also spoke on the occasion while Md Humayun Kabir, ICAB council member of Past President and Chairman of Organising Committee of celebration of the 50th Anniversary (Golden Jubilee) of ICAB moderated entire the technical sessions.

ICAB President Md Moniruzzaman said, the world is set to embrace the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), Bangladesh as well as ICAB are also very keen to adopt the changes regarding the revolution.

“ICAB has been playing a vital role in promoting and regulating high quality financial reporting and auditing in Bangladesh. This is very much in line with building a Smart Bangladesh. ICAB will keep on doing it in the future”, he said.

To achieve Bangladesh’s goal by 2041, each of the four components- smart government; smart citizens; smart economy and smart society should move together in a synchronized manner to march for inclusive growth towards prosperity, speakers said, adding that, Smart Bangladesh is a holistic concept and it will be myopic to define it only within digital space.

While many aspects of the four components focus on digital transformation like 100 per cent digital access for citizens, 100 per cent paperless government, digital tolerance for society and ICT industry acceleration for the economy, there are many other underlying factors in each of these components which require extensive input where CAs can play a vital role to support the government, they stated.

The reforms are needed in the areas of taxation, FDIs, education system, cybersecurity, data sharing, export diversification, and simplification of various government processes to improve ease of doing Business metrics, experts suggested.

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