Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday said the government will set up a high-tech park in every district to flourish the ICT sector.

“Necessary incentives will also be given if the investors invest in this sector in the proposed 100 economic zones across the country,” she said.

The premier said this while inaugurating a four-day Digital World, an ICT exposition, at Bangabandhu International Conference Center, with the slogan “Ready for Tomorrow”.

The ICT Division in collaboration with Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) organised it.

Hasina called upon all to work together for turning Bangladesh into a welfare oriented, peaceful, knowledge and science-based digital country. She said the dream of making Digital Bangladesh is now a reality.

In 2009, only 13 lakh people used internet, and now it crossed 8 crores. The premier said people are now availing 200 types of government services through mobile applications.

The government has taken steps to take its services to the doorsteps of people through reducing prices of internet bandwidth and digital equipment, and development of infrastructure.

Information services were made accessible to all through introduction of the biggest web portal with 25,000 government websites, she added.

She said the government is also trying to make the youth self-reliant by engaging them in freelancing. She hoped that about 20 lakh of the country's youth will be involved in ICT-based professions by 2021.

She said her government has made the ICT education compulsory at the secondary level from 2011, and is supplying computers and other necessary materials free of cost alongside setting up digital classrooms.

Hasina said about 50,000 youths are being given skill development training on ICT while about 10,000 ICT graduates are coming out every year from universities.

Referring to the export of Bangladesh software and IT services to over 50 countries, she hoped that the software export will exceed one billion dollars this year while five billion dollars in 2021.