Productivity and performance of IT sector in Bangladesh evidence from the firm level data

This paper analyses productivity and performance of the IT sector in Bangladesh based on a survey of 202 firms of various sizes. It also makes an assessment of the impact of recent global financial crisis on the sector. The negative impact of the global financial crisis appeared in the performance in 2007 but most IT firms seemed to have recovered in 2008. This indicates the inherent strength of the sector in terms of productivity and efficiency. It is observed that e-governance activities contribute to total productivity of the firms that are more than five years old. Infrastructure development, tax exemption, export promotion and training of engineers, among others, are major concerns in IT business operations, which can be tackled by appropriate policies to support further development of the sector.