US shows interest investing in tech-sector of Bangladesh
The United States is happy with the progress of Digital Bangladesh. As a result, after the twelfth parliamentary election, the visiting US delegation met for the first time on four aspects of this sector. The meeting was held at the Prime Minister's Private Industry and Investment Adviser Salman F Rahman MP's residence in Gulshan on Sunday night, December 25 and was attended by US President's Special Assistant to the National Security Council (NSC) Director Elaine Laubaker, USAID's Bureau of Asian Affairs Assistant Administrator Michael Schiffer and the Department of State's Deputy Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asia, Afrin Akhter.
State Minister for Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology Zunaid Ahmed Palak and State Minister for Power and Energy Nasrul Hamid participated in this meeting along with the Prime Minister's Private Industry and Investment Advisor Salman Fazlur Rahman. Foreign Secretary Masud bin Momen was also present in the meeting.
In response to a question from the journalists, the adviser said, "The election is now a past event." They didn't say anything about it and neither did we. Rather, in the coming days, how to deepen the relationship between the two countries has been discussed. The United States wants to start a new chapter of relations with the government of Bangladesh through this meeting. Along with that, the country wants to work with Bangladesh to increase bilateral trade and investment, security cooperation, improve labor environment and combat climate change.
After the meeting, ICT and Telecom State Minister Zunaid Ahmed Palak told reporters that Bangladesh's software exports to the United States should be increased; The two countries have expressed interest in increasing US investment in Bangladesh's startup sector, creating smart youth jobs for Bangladeshi youth, and working together on global cyber security.
Palak said, "Basically, we talked about four major issues of the US delegation. Cyber security, boosting exports and investment and generating smart youth employment. They are interested. United States wants to be with Bangladesh in building Smart Bangladesh. We have reached a consensus on these issues. They will be by our side in the new journey of the new government in the coming days.
Regarding the discussion, he said, 'Cyber security is not an issue of a certain country, rather it is an international issue. The main objective is to create awareness about cyber security and AI. We agreed on capacity retention, knowledge and technology exchange. Besides, we are trying to maintain the working relationship between the two countries. We've talked to our computer incident response team, their computer incident response team, about how to come to a formal agreement.'
