Shawdesh Desk:

Prime minister Sheikh Hasina on Thursday said that digital connectivity would be the key to transform Bangladesh into a smart nation in every way.

‘Digital connectivity will be the key tool to build smart Bangladesh. smart citizens, smart economy, and smart government and smart society will be developed on the basis of digital connectivity,’ she said in a video message aired at the inaugural ceremony of the Digital Bangladesh Fair-2023.

Posts and telecommunications ministry arranged the three-day Digital Bangladesh Fair at the Bangabandhu International Conference Centre for showcasing the IT and ITES products and services in the country.

She also hoped that the digital goods would play a significant role in investments and exports.

Hasina said that Digital Bangladesh was now a reality and the next target is to build smart Bangladesh and smart Nation.

‘There is no substitute for using ultra modern technology to achieve the target of building smart Bangladesh,’ she said.

The prime minister said her government wanted Bangladesh to become prosperous economically, ensuring maximum use of the digital technology that includes artificial intelligence, internet, virtual reality, augmented reality, robotics and big-data.

In this connection, she said that 5G services would be ensured at the industrial regions.

She mentioned that a revolution had taken place in Bangladesh in terms of digitisation.

‘Young generation is now seeing the dream of building smart Bangladesh.’

The prime minister said that her government had launched Bangabandhu Satellite-1 in the orbit in 2018 which had brought a revolutionary change in the broadcasting and telecommunications sectors.

She said that Bangladesh was earning a huge amount of foreign currency by using unused frequencies from satellites.

PM Hasina said that steps had been taken to install Bangabandhu Satellite-2 with multifaceted working capacity aiming to materialise the target of establishing smart Bangladesh.

She said that her government was going to set up a third submarine cable by 2024 as they had already installed the first and second submarine cables, adding that Bangladesh had so far achieved a bandwidth capacity of 3400 GBPS.

‘The bandwidth capacity will be increased to 7200 GBPS in the middle of this year, while it will be 13200 GBPS after installation of the third submarine cable.’

She mentioned that Bangladesh was earning $4.81million every year through giving bandwidth leases to Saudi Arabia, France, Malaysia and India.

The PM said Bangladesh didn’t need to depend on foreign satellites any more.

She noted that nearly 956298 kilometers optical fibre cables have been set up at union levels across the country while 10 Gigabyte capacity has been ensured in every union which help give high speed internet to the people and the government offices.

She said that a total of 8600 post offices across the country had been turned into digital ones using the infrastructure.

‘Nowadays 18 crore mobile SIMs are being used while the number of people using the internet is 12 crore. The digital inequality and prices of broadband internet between the rural and urban areas has been erased due to it,’ she added.

At the function, the newly introduced Posts and Telecommunication Award was distributed among 22 organisations and individuals in 14 categories in recognition of their praiseworthy works in the telecom sector to build digital Bangladesh.

Education minister Dipu Moni, Posts and Telecommunications Division minister Mustafa Jabbar, Posts Telecommunications and Information Technology Ministry’s Parliamentary Standing Committee president AKM Rahmatullah, and secretary of Posts and Telecommunications Division Abu Hena Morshed Zaman spoke at the function.