The new government will soon embark on the path towards "Digital Bangladesh" complying with their pre-election pledge as Finance Minister AMA Muhith indicated on Tuesday.

The signals were given at the inaugural function of the BASIS SoftExpo 2009 at Bangladesh China Friendship Conference Centre (BCFCC) also by two other key policymakers related to the ICT industry in presence of a huge crowd from the industry stakeholders.

Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) and Ministry of Science and ICT jointly organized the 4-day ICT extravaganza at the BCFCC with 93 software firms from home and abroad (USA, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Sri Lanka and Russia) exhibiting their products at 156 stalls.

Visitors will have to procure tickets at Tk 20 each to enter into the fair that will remain open from 10 am to 8 pm. Students will get free access.

Finance Minister AMA Muhith said the government would soon start introducing the e-purchase system for public procurement to reduce complexities of tender process and arrest corruption while an ICT roadmap would be designed through consultation with BASIS and Bangladesh Computer Samity (BCS).

"By 2020, the ICT will become the second largest industry in Bangladesh after readymade garments and textile sector and the second largest employer of quality manpower," he told the function.

To achieve the goal, Muhith said, they would have to go for improving computer literacy and English as a language, introducing e-governance (computerization of government operations, including providing training to the bureaucrats) and e-commerce, and develop professional computer services.

Addressing the function, Commerce Minister Lt. Col. (retd) Faruk Khan and State Minister for Science and ICT Yafez Osman assured the stakeholders of all government support to develop the industry.

"The government is fully committed politically and any other way," Faruk Khan told the function. The presence of three ministers at the programme well demonstrates the government's willingness to support the development of the sector, he said.

Responding to the problems raised by BASIS president Habibullah N Karim at the function as the bottlenecks of the sector, the Commerce Minister said the government has a plan to introduce computer as an academic subject at the secondary level by 2013 and at the primary level by 2021.

He added that the government has a plan to increase power generation to 7,000 MW by the year 2013.

BASIS president Habibullah N Karim said electricity supply is one of the main roadblocks to the development of the sector. Access to finance is another major problem of the sector, he added.