ICT Dev Index: Bangladesh slips two notches

Bangladesh has slipped two notches down to 145th in the global ICT Development Index among 175 countries, according to a report published by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) on Tuesday.

In the Measuring the Information Society Report 2016, the Republic of Korea stood first with 8.84 points, followed by Denmark with 8.83 points while Bangladesh achieved only 2.35 points.

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Bangladesh ranked 143th with 2.25 points in 2015, 145th with 1.97 points in 2014 and 146th in 2013.

The index is a composite measurement that ranks countries according to their level of ICT access, use and skills. The ITU started publishing the report in 2009.

State Minister for Telecom Tarana Halim refused to comment on the issue, while State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak could not be reached after several attempts.

The development index points for Bangladesh increases every year, but the growth could not keep pace with that of other countries, said industry experts.

Bangladesh has done very well in the use of mobile phones in the recent years, said Abu Saeed Khan, senior policy fellow at LIRNEasia.

But the country's achievement in internet use is poor, which is why Bangladesh ranked so low in the index, he said.

Among the neighbouring countries, Pakistan and Afghanistan, with a ranking of 146 and 164, are behind Bangladesh while Sri Lanka, Bhutan, India, Myanmar and Nepal did well with rankings of 116, 117, 138, 140 and 142 respectively, according to the index.

Bangladesh ranks 30th and the fifth lowest among the Asia and Pacific region countries, according to the report.

The report says around 14.4 percent people in Bangladesh use internet through mobile phones, 2.4 percent use fixed broadband internet while 13.5 percent use broadband.

All the top seven economies in the region — the Republic of Korea, the global top performer, Hong Kong (China), Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore and Macao (China)— have IDI values of above 7.5.

They are all high-income economies, which have maintained the high IDI performance throughout the period since the first publication of the index.

The report is widely recognised as the repository of the world's most reliable and impartial global data and analysis on the state of global ICT development.

Governments, financial institutions and private sector analysts in the world extensively rely on the index, ITU said in a statement.

Most people have access to internet but many do not actually use it, according to the report.

The spread of 3G and 4G networks across the world make the internet increasingly available to more and more people, it said.