Software exports grow 67pc in July-January

Staying immune from the ongoing global meltdown, the local information technology industry witnessed a 67 percent rise in exports during the first seven months (July-January) of this fiscal year, compared to the same period a year earlier.

The IT-enabled service makers fetched $19.75million from exports during the time, which was $11.77million last fiscal.

Software exports in the entire FY 2007-08 reached $24.82million. Industry insiders consider the year 2007 as stagnant for them like other industries because of the political uncertainty prevailed at that time.

"After passing a poor export performing export year, the industry started recovering from mid-2008," said Habibullah N. Karim, president of Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS).

The software industry contributes two-thirds to the total export of IT-enable services. Newly introduced call centres, graphics, data entry, animation and data processing companies are on the lists for the rest of the foreign exchange earners.

Karim said the on-going global meltdown partially affects the outsourcing industry. "As the big multinational corporate houses are in a crisis, local firms have to struggle managing outsourcing," he said.

The BASIS president however asserted that other IT-related industries remain far-from-affected by the global recession. He pointed to the fact that Bangladesh's IT companies are doing very low-end works for the global market.

In Bangladesh more than 300 IT-enable companies are producing services for both local and foreign markets.

Among them 100 companies are exporting their services to more than 30 destinations, mainly US and EU, in the global market.

The BASIS chief feels that an IT park should be set up as early as possible in the country. "An IT park could be a flagship of the country's ICT sector by which foreign investors and outsourcing companies would be encouraged to work with Bangladesh IT professionals.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009