The country’s ICT companies are currently exporting products and services worth $750-800 million to around 35 countries. This is the range of figures that is often quoted to glorify our booming ICT sector. Where these figures came from? ICT products are not exported against LCs (Letter of Credit). Then what is the basis of these figures? Is it an overestimation or underestimation?
Asked, the Bangladesh Bank (BB) or the concerned ministry failed to come up with specific figures of the sector’s export earnings. The figures quoted above are absolutely an underestimation of the foreign exchange earnings by our ICT sector, which comprises both individuals and institutions.
The government estimated that the country’s export earnings from the ICT sector would reach $11 billion by 2028. Earlier it set a target of increasing ICT export to $1 billion by 2018 and $5 billion by 2021. It was not known if the target was achieved as no specific figure relating to export earnings by the sector was available with the BB.
It is believed that the earnings are much more than what are being quoted. The central bank is not aware of the actual figures as bulk of these earnings is not at all getting into the country.
Most of the ICT companies have overseas operations and major portions of their earnings are deposited with their offshore bank accounts. They remit only the amount needed to run their local offices to the country.
The individuals earning from outsourcing deals are getting payments mostly through PayPal and in recent years through Payoneer, a MasterCard debit card issued against a collection account with the Bank of America.
Although PayPal doesn’t have operations in Bangladesh, any Bangladeshi can own and operate a PayPal account with the help of his friend or family member living in a foreign country. Besides, any verified freelancer can get a Payoneer MasterCard from anywhere in the world, while a Payoneer account holder can own a verified PayPal account even if he is from Bangladesh.
So, they are using these online payment platforms to get paid and only a part of these earnings are getting into our economy through informal channels, such as exchanges of foreign currencies among PayPal and Payoneer account holders through social media groups.
This is no good for the economy now facing a steady decline in foreign exchange reserves, as the amount being earned is huge and should add value to our GDP. Informed sources said an advanced-level Amazon affiliate (an individual freelancer) earns as much as US dollars equivalent to Tk 10 lakh per month, which could greatly help the economy if remitted in full to the country.
So, the question of how much of foreign currency our freelancers earn from outsourcing deals is a stumper. None in the administration or in the ICT sector can even remotely guess the figure that our young freelancers fetch by applying the skills they have in offer for the external world.
This is clearly a grey area of our economy, which has been thriving for the past 25 years or so with the ICT Division of the government boasting its success without even knowing the extent of it and helping the country to get maximum benefit from it.
Had the entire earnings of the ICT sector got into the economy, the country would have witnessed a different scenario in its export sector. But that is not happening, because the central bank’s foreign exchange regulations are still outdated and forced the foreign exchange earnings of the ICT sector to look for alternative ways to get paid. The solution lies in the modernisation of central bank’s forex regulations that will ensure inclusion of Bangladesh in PayPal’s network of countries.
Kazi Taznin Nahar is a journalist of The News Times
