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| .bd Bangladesh |
| Samudra E. Haque |
Overview Bangladesh is a symbol of progress for many developing countries in the world, due in part to the success of its overall growth development strategy and its continued emphasis on pragmatic policies to diversify the country’s economic base. The diversification programme aims to add new industrial, technical and service-based sectors to the mainly agrarian sectors. The country is cradled by the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent on three sides and is a land mass of nearly 150,000 square kilometres. The soil is alluvial and fertile, and there are considerable fishing resources in the Bay of Bengal, which encompasses the entire southern edge of Bangladesh. The physical location of Bangladesh in the subcontinent makes it a very natural nexus for communication between South Asia and the landlocked mountainous region comprising Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and parts of the western region of China. Many airlines operate international flights to Dhaka, Sylhet and Chittagong. The economy is growing steadily and, despite occasional instabilities in the political system, the country has always provided a free environment where young men and women can receive quality education and learn skills suitable for employment anywhere in the world. This is evident by Bangladesh people abroad, who have proven that they can positively contribute to any country drawing upon their own effort and resources. Steps have been taken by successive governments to achieve a balanced budget with emphasis on increasing inward foreign remittances from export of goods and labour. Recently, a good deal of attention was given to increasing the economic return from the public sector by either disposal of loss-making public sector corporations or allowing greater participation by the private sector, international investors and non-resident Bangladeshis. The first PCs were introduced to mainstream society in Bangladesh by electronics enthusiasts and engineers in 1983. Mainframe computer technology and multi-user terminals/workstations had been in widespread use much earlier, since 1964 (Choudhury, 2002; n.d.), by the scientific community for research into atomic energy and soon after by major banking institutions. However, very little progress was achieved for many reasons. Until the mid-1980s, the usefulness of the multi-user computer was limited to financial and statistical applications and basic data storage and retrieval functions. In the same year that PCs were introduced, the National Computer Committee was formed, which instituted approval guidelines for government purchases of computers in a prescribed form. It required government officials to declare the specifications of the system they wanted to purchase. Among the details they had to provide was how much heat the computers would generate, the method of cooling required and, in some cases, the size and weight of the system desired! Much advances have been made in our understanding of technology since those early naïve days of ICT usage in Bangladesh. Thanks to a very large network of computer dealers, resellers, distributors and system integrators the latest trends in computer technology are now found in all corners of the country barely two months after their release in Singapore, Hong Kong or Taiwan. The ICT industry is preparing for expansion in order to serve what is sure to become one of the largest e-commerce and e-governance communities in the world. The government has continued each year to liberalise its control over infrastructure investment by the private sector. It is also adapting public administration policy to include ICT promotion in all sectors. The country is making an effort to become a market-friendly and market-oriented developing country. It has taken pragmatic steps and is actively preparing to open up the telecommunications sector to public and private entrepreneurship under a structured plan that has been several years in the making. Many of the early engineers of the ICT industry, trained in the 1970s and 1980s and who had migrated to developed world markets, are now looking back to their home country and are sponsoring their own business ventures within the sector. A cursory review of statistics shows that the economy is growing fast. The market size of all sectors is quite large given the size of the country’s population. However, investments and logistics need to be carefully managed for maximum realisation of objectives. . . . . . the complete text of this chapter is available for purchase and immediate download as a PDF file, please click here for more information. |
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