Bangladesh ICT sector a rewarding destination for Japanese investors, entrepreneurs

Highlighting Bangladesh ICT sector as a rewarding destination for Japanese investors and entrepreneurs, Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS Senior Vice President Farhana A Rahman said that the sector is ready to offer to the Japanese ICT entrepreneurs and investors.

She said that some fiscal and non-fiscal incentives to the Japanese ICT entrepreneurs and investors by the Japan government would expedite the process of making investments in Bangladesh following the current practices while Japanese investors are investing in the ASEAN countries.

 She made this remark while presenting her keynote at the webinar hosted by BASIS with Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) today on "Bangladesh- Japan IT/ITES Industry Fraternity: Tapping the Trade & Investment Opportunities". 

She said that Bangladesh rejoices the time-tested strong economic and diplomatic relationship with Japan, established in February 1972 that got strengthened by the visit of Father of Nation of Bangladesh, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1973. 

Since then, Japan has been the single largest bilateral development partner of Bangladesh. 

Addressing the ICT industry fraternity that Japan and Bangladesh enjoys, BASIS had also observed Japan Day in SoftExpo 2019 and continuously attending in the Japan IT Week since 2015, she informed. 

The webinar was attended by representatives from around 100 top Japanese companies of the ICT domain with a quest of understanding the trade and investment potentials of Bangladesh ICT sector. 

The BASIS Japan Desk enlisted members also participated in the event along with the BASIS Secretariat representatives and JETRO Dhaka office. 

Farhana A. Rahman further informed that Bangladesh has emerged to be a competent outsourcing destination globally for IT/ITES becoming the 2nd in providing ICT outsourcing services such as, image processing, customer supports, software development, business processing and management outsourcing including non-verbal BPO, telemedicine, medical transcribing, customized website development, mobile application development.

 She added that the core strength of Bangladesh ICT sector in product and technology areas is now thriving in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data warehousing and analysis, Edu-Tech, Distributed Ledger development, Augmented and Virtual Realities, solutions related to Mobile Financial Services, E-commerce platform, App and Web customization.

During the webinar, BASIS Director Rashad Kabir introduced the Bangladeshi ICT companies who are now working with cutting-edge technologies in the areas of artificial intelligence, big data analysis, internet of things (IoT), AR & VR, web application and customized software, mobile application, and he invited all interested Japanese ICT businesses to communicate BASIS for finding suitable counterparts here, when needed.

While delivering his presentation, BJIT Representative Yasuhiro Akashi said that Bangladesh can be equally seen as the Next China and Next India from the Japanese IT/ITES investors and offshore development partners as Bangladesh is simultaneously oriented to English and Japanese languages offering available human resources at a very competitive rate that makes Bangladesh unique compared to Viet Nam, Philippines, Latin America, and Myanmar.

In his closing remarks, Country Representative of JETRO Yuji Ando wished, JETRO along with BASIS looks forward to working together for taking the ties between Japan and Bangladesh ICT sectors to the next level.

Rashad Kabir, Director of BASIS Japan Desk told The Business Standard that with a view to extend the bilateral ICT relationship between Bangladesh and Japan , we have launched BASIS Japan Desk last year which is the first country based focus desk in the history of any trade bodies of Bangladesh. 

Already 80+ ICT companies are now the member of BASIS Japan Desk. 

"We have already got a positive response from our Japanese counterpart. Number of webinar, virtual B2B matchmaking sessions have already been held. We are expecting that when the COVID situation will impeove, we will be able to organize more physical matchmaking session and our companies will be able to drive much more business from Japan," he said.

It was observed by the participants that frequent congregations like this would renew shared partnership and fraternity of Japan and Bangladesh enabling regional economic integration in the years to come.