Unnecessarily complex administrative procedures can discourage entrepreneurship, drive away investment, and deprive Bangladesh of valuable employment, exports, and economic growth.

The World Bank’s Bangladesh Development Update, released last month, rings out a warning bell for us.

Asia’s strong economic rebound from the pandemic is losing steam as tightening financial conditions, reduced export demand, and China’s sharp and uncharacteristic slowdown dim the outlook.

Political will must be backed by sufficient effective measures

Bangladesh’s steady embrace of digitalisation, spearheaded by a growing number of tech startups and rising software and IT service exports, has suffered a heavy blow from the imposition of new taxes this year. 

Many digital services of the government are suffering from myriad problems

But major bottlenecks remain, depriving people of full benefits

The digitalisation of 66 percent of the services offered by six ministries/divisions has saved both time and money of the ordinary people and also ensured service delivery, found a recent study by the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division.