Investment is needed to accelerate the progress of country’s economy

Prime minister’s private sector industry and investment advisor Salman F Rahman urged the Bangladeshi expatriates to invest in Bangladesh. “Investment is needed to accelerate the progress of country’s economy and initiatives have been taken to reduce problems related to investment of expatriates,” he told the closing session of a ten-day-long road show on Bangladesh’s economy in San Francisco, USA.

 

Mayor of the state of California Lisa M Gilmore spoke at the event, said a press release. Salman F Rahman said, “Bangladesh’s economy is steadily advancing and the private sector is leading the economy. The private sector is also leading various manufacturing companies, banks, insurance, media and power sectors.” This was possible due to the dynamic leadership of prime minister Sheikh Hasina, he added.

 

The potential for venture capital and startup businesses is increasing in Bangladesh. So it is the high time for investment, he added. Mayor Lisa termed Bangladesh as a country of emerging economies and praised Bangladesh’s progress. This progress was possible due to dynamic leadership of prime minister Sheikh Hasina.

 

The current government’s efforts to use technology to reduce poverty, and transform the lives of the general population in Bangladesh has played a key role in this growth. The government recognizes digital inclusion as the only way to facilitate rural economic activities, and enable rural workers to capture a larger piece of the economic pie. The government very carefully designed digital services to ensure they are relevant for all three groups of Bangladeshi citizens: digital natives – younger, tech-savvy, generations growing up with technology; digital adapters – middle-aged individuals who have adopted technology; and outliers – the minority who stay away from technology.

 

The government has made a concerted effort towards achieving the Digital Bangladesh Vision by 2021, marking the 50th anniversary of Bangladesh's independence. The Digital Bangladesh philosophy of the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is to protect people's democracy and human rights, ensure transparency and accountability, establish justice, and ensure delivery of government services to the citizens of Bangladesh through maximum use of technology, with the ultimate goal being the overall improvement of the daily lifestyle of the general population.

The Government has been proactively pursuing the digital penetration of all government portals by the year 2023. The country developed the National Portal in 2014, which now houses over 45,000 websites and services of different government offices, with about 60 million hits a month on average.

 

Over 5,000 Digital Centres have been set up across the country to cover the “last mile” and ensure the various digital services reach all citizens, addressing the issue of the digital divide. To ensure interoperability, the Bangladesh National Digital Architecture was established.

 

Digital services like Smart NID, the biometric database of unique IDs, fingerprints and iris scans has been successful in making citizen services run more smoothly, and negating problems like fake IDs and impersonation.

 

We have issued over 100 million digital IDs to our citizens, which is one of the highest in the world. Machine readable e-passports were launched early this year to enable faster immigration processes, greater accuracy, and better data matching against immigration databases and watch lists.