When Smart Bangladesh is formed, Google and Facebook can be brought under revenue, Jessore-3 MP Kazi Nabil Ahmed has said.
“The government is working to build a Smart Bangladesh. Smart Bangladesh will be 100% digitalized and paperless. Everything from revenue collection to administrative operations will be automated,” he added.
Kazi Nabil Ahmed, member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Ministry of Finance and member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the comments as a chief guest at the “Taxing the Digital Economy: Trade of and Opportunities” organized by CPD on Saturday.
He added due to the digitalized system, employment in the technology sector will increase, harnessing the demographic dividend to create a trained workforce. “Desired results will also come in revenue collection.”
The MP later said that even though Bangladesh is yet to bring Google, Facebook, and Twitter fully under revenue, in the future it is possible.
“Once upon a time, people used to make fun of the concept of Digital Bangladesh. Now Digital Bangladesh is a reality. When the country is automated, it will be technologically dependent. This will increase the efficiency of the revenue sector,” he added.
“Today's discussion, digital economy, was initiated by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. She introduced the slogan Digital Bangladesh for the first time during the 2008 election,” he added.
After 2009, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her son Sajeeb Wazed gave the people of the country the gift of Digital Bangladesh, said Kazi Nabil Ahmed.
“We are discussing its various problems today because this digital economy or digital Bangladesh has happened. If there was no digital economy, we would not have been talking about it now,” he added.
The lawmaker said that it should be remembered when Khaleda Zia was the prime minister from 1991 to 1996, she was offered submarine cables for free, but she could not do anything about it.
“Later Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina connected us with the submarine cable between 1996 and 2001. Here we have to understand which party or which prime minister is prudent and forward-looking. And who is thinking to take the country forward,” he added.
Pointing out that the world has been going through a disaster in the last three years, the lawmaker said: “Since the Covid-19 pandemic began, people said that there would be millions of corpses lying on the streets and villages of Bangladesh. But that did not happen due to the skillful leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. No man died without eating as well.”
“Not only that, Bangladesh has been considered a successful country in facing the Covid-19 challenge. On the other hand, when the topic of vaccines arose, it was said that where the developed world was suffering, there will be a disaster in Bangladesh for sure. But Bangladesh succeeded in that field as well,” Kazi Nabil Ahmed said.
He added that when the Covid-19 issue got a bit settled, the world was hit by the Russia-Ukraine war. “Fuel, daily essential prices increased all over the world due to the war. Currently, even though the price of fuel has come down in the international market, since we are an import-dependent country, we still have to deal with inflation.”
Ahsan Adelur Rahman, MP, member of the Parliamentary Committee on Estimates, CPD Distinguished Fellow Debapriya Bhattacharya and Executive Director Fahmida Khatun also spoke at the event.
