Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb Highlights ICT and Telecom Reforms, Prepares Next Government for Digital Challenges
Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb, Special Assistant to the Chief Adviser responsible for the Ministry of Post, Telecommunications, and Information Technology, expressed satisfaction that as much as possible, upcoming government challenges are being addressed proactively. He said that taking all criticism and pressure on his shoulders, he has tried his utmost to resolve all challenges so the next government can advance the digital economy. Using only existing resources without launching new projects in the past budget, he aimed to enhance institutional capacity and optimize projects. When he assumed responsibility, the World Bank’s edge project implementation rate was just 11 percent; today it has risen to 80 percent. This record is expected to attract new investments and funding for digital transformation.
On Wednesday afternoon at a discussion on “ICT and Telecom Sector Reform,” held in Karwan Bazar, Dhaka, Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb provided these remarks in response to a question. The roundtable was jointly organized by the citizen platform Voice for Reform and the Technology Industry Policy Advocacy Platform (TIPAP), with him attending as the chief guest.
He noted that although the average import duty in Bangladesh exceeds 73 percent, for mobile phone imports it has been reduced to 10 percent. Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb further promised to advocate at the NBR for even lower taxes by showing best practices if others can achieve similar reductions in their sectors.
Addressing the ongoing protests, he said that mobile importers pay not just 43 percent tax but also custom duty, restrictive duty, and ATI duty. The ATI portion can be rebated, with restrictive duty being 3 percent and custom duty already reduced from 25 percent to 10 percent.
Expressing confidence that mobile prices will drop following the duty reductions, he added that NBR, the Ministry of Commerce, and consumer rights authorities will monitor the market. He clarified that most phones priced under 30,000 BDT are locally produced, and protestors mostly import phones above 30,000 BDT via carriers and contacts. The 60 percent duty reduction was aimed at easing this pressure, and all demands of the protesters were addressed, legalizing their stock for the next three months.
Regarding the deactivation of 8.8 million SIM cards, he said 60–70 percent were unused, so there is no cause for panic.
The discussion was moderated by TIPAP Coordinator Fahim Mashrur, and participants included BTRC Commissioner Brigadier General (Ret.) Iqbal Ahmed, telecom expert Mahtab Uddin Ahmed, and Professor Niyaz Asadullah, head of the ICT White Paper Taskforce, among others.
Earlier, Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb criticized the previous government’s vision in ICT, saying the foundation pillars of digital public infrastructure—legal framework, interconnectivity, electronic ID management and verification, and service layer—were largely ignored, with focus placed only on service-centric app development. Siloed systems persisted, and over 50 ministries and offices lacked digital connectivity highways. Previous electronic ID methods were flawed due to inconsistent data across databases, while alternative databases could have been used for authentication.
Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb detailed key initiatives: revising cybersecurity laws to protect individuals, institutions, and government separately; implementing Personal Data Protection and National Data Governance & Interoperability Ordinances; localizing data backups to prevent sector paralysis due to geopolitical risks; seven cybersecurity policies including a National Source Code Policy for cabinet approval; piloting citizen services with 41 live APIs; deploying monitoring agents for virtual machines under NDC; launching platform-as-a-service models; reviewing contracts in the Fiber-at-Home program to maximize 30 percent revenue share; cancelling Tk 2,500 crore unproductive Hi-Tech Park projects; reclaiming 43 acres of land; establishing a National GitHub for source code storage, reducing vendor dependency.
Telecom reforms included advancing postal address management; increasing digital tracking from below 40 percent to nearly 66 percent; piloting central logistic tracking for courier, bank, MFS, and e-commerce companies; simplifying licensing and policy frameworks to enable innovation and active/passive sharing; expanding submarine cable bandwidth from 1.7 Tb to 4.5 Tb; and supporting domestic entrepreneurs. BTRC can now adjust tariff ceilings every three months up to 2.5 percent, with a co-judicial review integrated into ministry and BTRC decisions.
DBTech/IEH/MUM/OR
