The yearly export earning from Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector is likely to cross US$1 billion from current $300 millions within five years, says prime minister's ICT Adviser Sajeeb Wazed Joy.
“Now our income from Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector is 100 million dollars, it will cross 1 billion dollars in future. The current employment in this sector is 25 thousand, our target is to cross two lakh in the next five years. I feel honored to have the opportunity to bring the vision 2021 to light,” Joy said.
Joy as the chief guest made the observation while addressing the opening ceremony of two-day BPO Summit at a city hotel on Wednesday. The ICT Division, in association with Bangladesh Association of Call Centre and Outsourcing (BACCO) is hosting the event for the first time in the country with an aim to brand Bangladesh as an ideal place for investment and business management.
The adviser to the PM also said the government is giving importance on IT training to train the next generation as IT entrepreneurs, IT experts, outsourcing technicians and call center professionals to grow the IT sector, and to drive economy of country.
It might take five years, might take 10 or 20 years, but the export earning of IT sector would surpass the garment sector in future, he said adding that this is the vision of Digital Bangladesh.
Describing the ICT development initiatives of the government, he said the export earning from the IT sector has reached to US$300 millions from US$26millions in last six years. Currently, over 200,000 people is now working in the field which was only few thousand programmers six years back.
When we started working in ICT, we see that a few thousands of IT graduates are coming up, but they do not have any experience in BPO. So, we introduced training programmes for them under the ICT division of the government, he said.
“We now have a target to train 50,000 youths annually on ICT. Last year, we have trained around 30,000 youths, and from now onwards, 50,000 youths will be given with necessary training annually on ICT and software development,” said Joy.
“Today BPO sector outsourcing earning is US$100 million, it will cross US$1 billion in future,” he said adding that the youth workforce in BPO- which is now 25,000, will reach at around 2lakh in next five years.
Sharing a personal story of his life at Bangalore in India, Joy said there was no outsourcing industry in India or in Bangalore 25 years back, but India has become number one outsourcing destination of world.
