Govt builds technology centre for light engineering, plastics manufacturing

The government is building a technology centre at Bangabandhu High-Tech City in Gazipur especially for the light engineering and plastics manufacturing sectors.

Today, Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Haque and Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi jointly laid the foundation stone of the centre titled the "Centre of Excellence for Engineering and Technology".

As a part of the government's goal of bringing export diversification, the commerce ministry is establishing the centre under World Bank-funded Export Competitiveness for Jobs (EC4J) flagship project, according to a press release of the ministry.

Through this centre, the excellence of domestic industries will be enhanced by providing modern technology services, up-to-date training, technical and business consultancy services for small and medium industries in the manufacturing sector, including light engineering and plastics, it said.

The decision to set up a technology centre was a very timely move, Haque said as the chief guest. "The quality of our products will be improved through this centre."

In order to compete with the present world, the quality, design and quality of products must be of international standards, the commerce minister said. "Otherwise we will not be able to compete in exports."

He said many countries are earning higher amount of foreign currencies despite exporting less than Bangladesh, because of higher value addition in the manufactured goods.

"And even though we are exporting more, we are earning less because we are not able to do proper value addition due to a lack of design and quality of the products."

The entrepreneurs will be able to overcome the barriers to exports by using this technology centre, he added.

The possible services of the centre include electrical and electronics testing, battery testing, technology services, design development and prototyping, and providing facility-based services and entrepreneur development.