Bangladesh has the potential to export semiconductors worth around $3 billion within the next five years, prime minister’s private industry and investment adviser Salman F Rahman has said.
“The government has prepared a roadmap for the semiconductor industry considering its potential as many global firms are currently operating in the country,” he added.
He came up the comments after a meeting on “Policy Dialogue on Roadmap for Smart Bangladesh” at the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA) office in the capital’s Agargaon on Monday.
State minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak presided over the meeting.
Expressing the hope that Bangladesh will be able to come out of the ‘middle-income country’ trap if it can utilise advanced technologies, Rahman urged ICT division to work out the budgetary allocation for Smart Bangladesh.
Salman F Rahman said, “Since we have graduated from LDC, we have serious challenges ahead. Countries that have graduated from LDCs have fallen into the middle-income trap like Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
“So, if we want to reach the target, apart from smart citizens, we have to do a lot of work in education and health.”
He added that there is not enough time to determine what budget support is needed for Smart Bangladesh. Therefore, meetings with stakeholders are required on an urgent basis.
Palak said, “Now we have the basic soft infrastructure of mobile network, e-services, smart cards etc. A service eco-system stands on the basis, so that we can definitely achieve our goal by 2041.”
IT Department Secretary Md Samsul Arefin, BIDA Executive Member Mohsina Yasmin, BASIS President Russell T Ahmed, BCS President Subrata Sarkar, Managing Director of Neural Semiconductor Limited MA Jabbar and Managing Director of Startup Bangladesh Ltd Sami Ahmed, among others, were present.
