DHAKA: Bangladesh has set out its course in building a technology park, inking a deal with leading local conglomerate Summit Group having partnership with India’s Infinity Infosys Parks Limited to boost the country’s growing ICT industry.

“This is part of our initiative to transform Bangladesh into a merit-based nation from a labour-intensive country through the development of our ICT sector,” state minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak said as he joined the ceremony last night to mark the signing the agreement on setting up the Kaliakoir Hi-Tech Park (KHTP) at a city hotel.

He added the KHTP would be a specialised economic zone and lifeline of the country’s IT sector providing room for foreign investors as well as the Bangladeshi entrepreneurs creating a “world-class business environment” developing the facility under the government’s Public-Private Partnership (PPP) programme.

State-run Bangladesh Hi-Tech Park Authority (BHTPA) and Summit Technopolis Limited, a sister concern of the Summit Group signed the deal when Summit’s chairman Aziz Khan expected the park to become the “cyber capital of the (South Asian) region in next 15 years”.

Under the agreement Summit Technopolis and India-based Infinity Infosys Parks Limited will jointly invest $207.59 million (Dh262.51 million) in the first phase of building the high-tech park at suburban Gazipur district where the government provided the KHTP the site covers 232 acres of land.

According to the project documents the first phase of development due to be fully operational within 10 years and creating job opportunities for 60,000 IT professionals the Summit would bear 90 per cent of total costs of nearly $208 million and the Infinity would provide the rest 10 per cent.

The ICT ministry officials, meanwhile, said the park would be designed to accommodate Multi-Tenant Buildings (MTB), convention centers, hotels, custom infrastructure, warehouse, water treatment plant and power substations alongside the IT-based industrial units.

“We are approaching with a duel strategy to attract investments through Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and provide state-of-the-art facilities to the Bangladesh based IT/ITES Industry,” ICT Secretary Shyam Sunder Sikder said.

Bangladesh Hi-Tech Park Authority’s managing director Hosne Ara Begum said the agreement between the government and Summit Technopolis Ltd would be valid 40 years, which can be extended by another 20 years.