PROJECT INTEGRATION AND THE ECONOMIC SYSTEMS

During the past few years, authoritative statements by senior government and party officials have underlined the priority assigned to mobilizing the country's Science &Technology resources for socioeconomic ends. We must first create a driving force for the improvement of science and technology. This driving force rests with the interests attained by researchers, inventors and those who effectively apply science and technology to various domains…. It is necessary to say that all intellectual products should belong to their creators. They must be considered special goods and their prices should be set in accordance with their value…. The science and technology sector must concentrate its research on quickly applying new findings to production and business in order to serve industrialization and modernization. It must meet the demands of new equipment in the national economy, improve existing technologies, modernize traditional technologies and correctly adapt new technologies. It must also help to manage and closely assess imported technologies and pay attention to the development of electronics, informatics, biology and new materials. Through practical renovation activities, it must get close to real life, quickly discover and improve upon the public's inventions, accelerate its studies and clarify issues relating to the strategy for industrialization and modernization.

Earlier in the history of modern Bangladesh, specific technological solutions have been proposed by the government, in accordance with the expertise and resources available, but the government avoided setting specific priorities within whole fields of technology. About 5 years ago, however, a clear ranking emerged in the form of four national-priority programs for high technology. Each is viewed by government as a new attempt to modernize the country's productive forces. High-level inter ministerial committees monitor and coordinate the national programs for IT, biotechnology, new materials, and automation.
The procedure followed to arrive at these four technology areas is unclear. However, Bangladesh has set the same general priorities for its technological renovation as its largest neighbors (indeed, also the same as most industrial countries). The Bangladeshi version of high-tech programs assigns highest emphasis to the means to access and obtain high technology from overseas and on ways to apply and adapt this technology in firms and institutions throughout the economy. Much less emphasis is placed, at least initially, on generating high technology within Bangladesh, although a degree of experimental development of technology is encouraged.
Our many discussions with both Bangladeshi and multinational industry and with international organizations indicated strong support for this balance, although it is certainly not reflected universally from within the basic-research community of Bangladesh. This approach and this emphasis are very similar to those that led to the successful experiences of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, and we believe, therefore, that the emphasis in Bangladesh should remain on technical and related services, rather than on scientific research. First and foremost, Bangladeshi firms and institutions need to have better access to available modern technology from within the country and from other countries. Only very few companies in Bangladesh can afford the luxury of independently developing products and processes with a high technological content.
It is also important, however, is to establish powerful mechanisms to systematically monitor the technical changes taking place in other countries and obtains, adapt, and diffuse already available technology and related know-how. This imperative, to develop a systematic capacity to absorb and diffuse new technology, exceeds all others.
As policy initiatives, the four national high-tech programs have been widely publicized. It is, of course, far too early to judge the extent to which all four will achieve the ambitious results they aim for. They all have steering committees with experts from different government sectors, but they are all differently managed. The most comprehensive and advanced of the four national programs is that on IT.
The main weakness of the four national programs is structural. Only a few companies are involved as partners with the dominant institutions (ministries, state agencies, R&D institutes, university departments). The four national programs connect R&D scientists and engineers mainly among public institutions and some SOEs. However, R&D institutions and high-tech firms from overseas also have a limited involvement. Because of the composition of those involved in the programs, effective diffusion of technology and related know-how is restricted mainly to the government sector. Yet, opportunities for subcontracting and other cross-border production networks will likely depend on how well Bangladeshi firms and institutions accumulate and consolidate technology-related skills and experiences. If the programs are to become national, they will need to include a variety of other partners, such as business enterprises. Only in the broader economy are capabilities created to absorb new technology.
One of the principal findings of this review, therefore, is that in Bangladesh the relations between the Science &Technology research institutes and the productive sector, including both public and private enterprises, are rather limited and almost nonexistent in some sectors.
However, a few research institutes have been rather effective in obtaining contracts to provide technical services for government departments and SOEs, usually applying well-known technologies. When pressed, researchers, professors, and administrators indicated that they follow the orientations provided by the central government, primarily through preparing projects and submitting proposals for funding as part of the four national research programs: IT, biotechnology, new materials, and automation. The linkage to the productive sector is usually forced by budget constraints, which make it necessary to engage in contract research with government agencies and SOEs, although these contracts involve little actual research.