State Minister for Information and Communication Technology Zunaid Ahmed Palak said that new opportunities for cooperation will open up with the US over the next five years of the government.
He said this following a meeting with US Ambassador to Bangladesh Peter Haas on Tuesday.
He mentioned that there is heightened interest in Bangladesh from other nations and said: “Based on discussions with Ambassador Haas, I think trade relations between the countries will increase in the coming years.”
In reference to the meeting's agenda, Palak talked about their focus on strategizing how the United States can collaborate with Bangladesh based on the vision of creating a smart Bangladesh by 2041, as envisioned by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Palak said there were three primary objectives of their discussion.
The first objective was about strategies to further enhance software exports and expand Bangladesh’s presence in the US.
“The United States stands out as the primary outsourcing hub for our software and freelancers. Among the 60 countries receiving our exported software, America takes the lead with the highest volume. We engaged in discussions on strategies to further enhance this collaboration and expand our presence,” he said.
Additionally, they discussed establishing resource innovation centres at 10 universities.
"In essence, our talks centred around determining the nature of cooperation the United States can offer in building a smart Bangladesh collaboratively. This involves enhancing exports, attracting investments, and fostering job creation,” he added.
“We discussed how to explore ways in which the US could contribute to and support these initiatives,” Palak said.
Another crucial aspect of the conversation centred on fostering government-to-government (G2G) cooperation between the United States and the Bangladesh Post Office.
“The objective is to attract investments, particularly from major American companies like Amazon, Starling, SpaceX, Google, and Facebook, encouraging their increased involvement in specific sectors,” he added.
