"An investment of US $330 million can generate export earnings of up Tto approximately US$1 billion and create 1 lakh jobs," said AKM Fahim Mashroor, chief executive officer of Bdjobs.com Limited.

The seminar titled "BPO Export Opportunities for Bangladesh" was organised by Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS).

A number of speakers indicated Bangladesh has a strong base to emerge as a strong BPO exporting country since there is a high concentration of employable BPO professionals with basic computer skills and adequate support institutions.

Bangladesh currently has around 20-25 BPO operators who export around 1000 jobs worth approximately US$5 million per year.

Speakers also focused on various prospective BPO success areas for Bangladesh, that include data entry, data processing, call centres, e-accounting, and GIS data conversion/autoCAD.

Presenting an outline of their operations, five BPO operators dwelled on their problems and put forward various recommendations for the growth of the nascent BPO in Bangladesh.

The speakers also said lack of English language proficiency among the professionals and poor IT infrastructure are hampering the BPO growth.

Speaking as chief guest at the seminar, Secretary for the Ministry of Commerce and Chairman of ICT Business Promotion Council (IBPC) Suhel Ahmed urged the organisers to follow up this seminar to provoke government engagement in BPO and invite young entrepreneurs to the potential field.

Habibullah Karim, president of BASIS and vice chairman of IBPC, presided over the seminar.