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Bangla | Tuesday | 20 May 2025 | Epaper

PTPR for advanced digitalization in Bangladesh

Published : Monday, 24 October, 2022 at 12:00 AM  Count : 537
Ferdaus Ara Begum
Production Transformation Policy Review (PTPR) is an initiative to support graduating LDC for policy dialogue on global value chain, production through development being implemented by OECD Development Centre with financial support from European Commission. The Peer Learning Group (PLG) Meeting was organized in the framework of the Production Transformation Policy Review (PTPR) of Bangladesh on September 8, 2022 which is being carried out at the request of the Government of Bangladesh.

So far a number of PTPR has been carried out by the Centre for Colombia in February 2019, Chile in January 09, 2018, Dominican Republic in July 2020, Egypt July 8, 2021 while the PTPR for Shenzhen, China is waiting along with Bangladesh.

PTPR is prepared in collaboration with the United Nations Department of Social and Economic Affairs (DESA), the UN Committee for Development Policy (CDP) and its Secretariat, and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the UN Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO).

The Peer Learning Group (PLG) Meeting was organised in the framework of the Production Transformation Policy Review (PTPR) of Bangladesh recently where a number of public and private sector representatives were present. The objective of the PTPR-PLG meeting for Bangladesh was to enable targeted peer-dialogue on key issues as they emerge during the PTPR process and to identify lessons learned to improve the quality of the policy process based on peer review and multi-stakeholder dialogue.

PTPR believes that each country, region and city is unique and as such there is no "one size fits all" approach, however in global, interconnected and open economies, peer learning and knowledge sharing are paramount to enhance the quality and impact of development strategies and policies.


The PTPR-PLG meeting is open to public and private stakeholders willing to share knowledge and accompany the PTPR process. PTPR-PLG members commit to sharing knowledge, information and lessons learned when participating in the PTPR-PLG meeting and during the review process.

All participants in the PTPR-PLG of Bangladesh are invited to; Revise and comment on the Background Note document provided for discussion; Participate in the debate; Share views and experiences with a view to identifying good practices to share with Bangladesh.

The PTPR on Bangladesh had a session on unleashing the potential of digitization for economic transformation in Bangladesh. Automation and digital technologies will be powerful element in supporting Bangladesh's economic transformation, provide opportunities for innovation and local development, help opening up new business frontiers and can contribute to make existing industries productive and environmentally sustainable.

The country now needs to advance its efforts to bring people online and update its policies, tools and partnerships to effectively embedded digital technologies in production, trade and logistics. Discussions were oriented on identifying actionable policy responses, based on international peer dialogue, for unleashing the potential of digital technology to transform the economy and its participation to global markets. The session tried to understand what governments can do to support making use of digital technologies by businesses and what national and foreign businesses can do to make the most of digital technologies in existing and future industries.

Examples of different countries on what and how they have contributed in that respect and the policies of the government were presented. The experiences of India was useful, which has shown a clear segmentation of a population tree, it has shown that about four million people are rich under the bracket of income group more than Rs 17 lac, against which Bangladesh has 1.6 million people. They have 228 million people who belong to middle class (income bracket Rs 3.4-17), in Bangladesh it is about 15.24 million. They identified next category at 462 million within income bracket of Rs 1.5-3.4 as aspirers, comparative picture for BGD is 67.74 million. The remaining are in the category of deprived people amounting about 500 million (income below Rs 1.5), in Bangladesh the amount is about 84.67 million.

Policies is to be depending on the specific category. Internet users in India is about 824.89 million while social media users is 467 million. About 99% of Indian population have a universally accepted seamlessly connected digital identity through finger print and retina scan. Government of India is leveraging technology for effective delivery of services.

Bangladesh needs to identify the gaps to understand its situation and design policies accordingly to bridge the digital divide. There are ample improvement in several aspects of digital technology, however, integrated and coordinated approach is required and accordingly needs to enact policies.

Another session was on more FDI and mobilize it to diversify Bangladesh's production and export base. Despite targeted efforts to increase Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), Bangladesh continues to attract little FDI. The average net FDI inflow is below 1% of GDP, while 70% of which is on a single sector on energy, other emerging countries as Vietnam at 6% and Morocco at 2.5%.


Bangladesh has opted for a model of FDI attraction based on special economic zones and currently has a plan to create 100 new zones by 2030. Increasing FDI and to mobilize it to achieve the national ambitions of diversifying the economy, make it more productive and more environmentally sustainable is a challenge for the country. This session focuses on identifying actionable policy responses, based on international peer dialogue, for Bangladesh to attract more FDI and to leverage on FDI to diversify the nation's production and export base.
What government can do to attract FDI in attracting sectors is to diversify its production and export base. The most important discussed point was on how to avoid the risks associated with the potential of enclave-led growth and how to promote that the benefits of FDI trickle down to the local economy.

The presentation of Morocco informed about creation of the National Investment Commission (CNI) which will be responsible for: - approving investment agreements benefiting from common allowances - deciding on the strategic nature of projects and eligibility of Moroccan companies to export schemes - evaluating the effectiveness of the measures/schemes put in place - proposing any measure for improving investment environment.

(To be continued)
The writer is chief executive officer, Business Initiative Leading
Development (BUILD)












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