Chittagong: Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed on Friday forecast Bangladesh exports to reach $ 60 billion by 2021 coinciding with the country’s 50^th of independence anniversary.

‘We are confident that Bangladesh will achieve this growth due to its policy, dynamic private sector, strong economic foundation and fundamentals, strategic location and, moreover because of our resilient people,’ BSS quoted the minister as saying while opening the 24^th month long ‘Chittagong International Trade Fair-2016’ (CITF-2016).

He added that the country’s current annual export now stood at over $ 31 billion and was increasing at a whopping rate of 12.5 percent per annum while ‘Bangladesh has set a target to take export earnings $ 5 billion by 2021 mainly from the Information Technology (IT) and $ 5 to $ 10 billion from medicine sectors’.

‘The sole aim of this is that we want to transform Bangladesh from a labour-reliant economy to a digital one,’ Tofail Ahemd said.

The minister, however, said some bottlenecks were setting back the most prospective sectors, including garments, medicine, leather, shipbuilding and Information Technology (IT).

‘Western countries will need 2 million programmers in the next 20 years, Our country too will need a few hundred thousand programmers in the next 5 years. We will create employment opportunities for a million youths in the IT sector,’ the minister added.

Chittagong Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) organised the fair at Railway Polo Ground.

With CITF-2016 convenor and CCCI vice president Sayed Zamal Ahmed in the chair, the inaugural function was addressed, among others, by Housing and Public Works Minister Engineer Mosharraf Hossain, MP, City Mayor A Z M Nasir Uddin, former CCCI President M A Latif, MP, CCCI president Mahbubul Alam and CCCI vice-president Nurun Nowaz Selim.

Over 450 stalls including 12 premier gold pavilions, three mini mega pavilions, eight premier pavilions, 20 standard pavilions, 166 premier mega booths, 22 mega booths were set up till to date at the fair venue.

The CCCI has been organising the fair since 1993 and it got a wide range of publicity by the Bangladesh foreign missions in abroad, foreign missions in Bangladesh and different trade bodies and world famous trade based web sites.