Promoting export of ICT based services through the export policy of Bangladesh

Abstract

The service sector that provides a service, not an actual product that could be held in one's hand, is in fact, an important part of a country's economy. In Bangladesh, ICT has been identified as one of the major sub-sectors in the service sector of the country. Export policy of Bangladesh, designed for 2015-2018, has included 12 highest priority sectors considering their special export potentials, where software and ICT enabled services is one of them. The policy has some certain goals for promoting export of ICT based services, e.g. ensuring improvement of information communication system, examining possibility of setting up marketing centers abroad, taking initiatives of IT Villages for increasing export, facilitating availability of high speed data transmission line and strengthening the base of the ICT sector regionally, providing facilities to develop the ICT sector through the ICT Business Promotion Council, ensuring country branding through Export Promotion Bureau and missions abroad. The broad objective of the study is to analyze export policy of Bangladesh related with ICT based service and the overall situation of policy implementation and under this broad objective specific objectives are (1) to evaluate the role of export policy of Bangladesh in promoting ICT based service export and (2) to find if there is gap between Bangladesh export policy for ICT based service and implementation of the policy. For analysis of data, combination of both qualitative and quantitative method has been used. To understand whether the ICT based service related export policy of Bangladesh is sufficient or not, content analysis of qualitative type has been done. To understand the opinion and views of business entrepreneurs regarding the policy and government initiatives, a survey has been performed with structured questionnaire. Qualitative analysis has also been used to examine the performance of the policy and to find gaps with policy implementation. For this purpose, in-depth interviews were taken with key informants. Implementation of export policy related with ICT based service export is the dependent variable for the study.