Stories

Bangladesh digital development

2 mai 2014
ITC News
NTFIII project aimed at enhancing its IT sector

The information technology (IT) and IT-enabled services (ITES) industries in Bangladesh will be given a boost through a US$1.9 million funding by the Government of The Netherlands. The project, which is financed by the third phase of the Netherlands Trust Fund (NTFIII), will be launched in the capital, Dhaka, from 5 to 8 June 2014 at the SOFTEXPO trade fair.

The NTFIII Bangladesh project will run from June 2014 to July 2017. It will be implemented by the Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) and the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which will both offer training on export marketing, growth strategies and quality management.

The NTFIII is aimed at promoting key sectors in priority developing countries to generate new export revenues. The NTFIII Bangladesh project is targeted at enhancing the export competitiveness of Bangladesh’s IT services sector, as well as to build the capacity of BASIS to improve services for its small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) members. To promote sustainable export development, NTFIII will provide coaching for BASIS on the organisation of segment-specific business-to-business matchmaking events for targeted markets.

The Fund, administered by the International Trade Centre (ITC), follows on the success of the NTFII (2009-2013) which led to an increase in exports to Europe by 20 per cent for 24 Bangladeshi IT & ITES companies.

In March this year, an NTFIII Steering Group led by Dick De Man, Deputy Managing Director and Head of Institutional Development at the Centre for the Promotion of Imports from Developing Countries (CBI) and Prof. Rob van Eijbergen, Special Representative for International Relations at CBI met with stakeholders in Dhaka to discuss co-ordination strategies ahead of the June launch of the IT project.