Entrepreneurs and experts in the field of mobile apps and software yesterday said they want to represent Bangladesh as a destination for making apps and games.

At a discussion, they said only a single mobile app or game can change the face of a country's economy.

Although there are about 6.32 crore internet connections in Bangladesh at the moment, people mostly browse Facebook, as they do not have local content as an alternative, experts said.

The event, 'World of mobile gaming and Bangladesh's preparation,' was organised by the Information Communication Technology Division at Bangladesh Computer Council auditorium in Dhaka.

Attending the event, State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak said the government targeted ICT as the main tool to becoming a middle-income country by 2021 and here, the mobile app and gaming industry can play an important role.

'Angry Birds' helped brand Finland as a mobile gaming country. Currently, Angry Birds has a market value of about $7 billion, according to Palak.

"Only six years back, our foreign reserves were less than the Angry Birds market value.”

Currently, the global gaming market is worth $96 billion, which will be $113 billion in 2018, said Palak. "We want to grab 1 percent of this market in the next few years."

The government recently took up a Tk 281.97 crore project, which will train 8,750 app developers and 2,800 game animators.

The government will invest more than Tk 8,000 crore in 2016-17 to digitise government services and get the real output of digitisation; mobile apps and gaming can give extra mileage to the government for doing theirjob.

Palak said the government will train around two lakh people and one lakh new

ICT-related jobs will be created in the next five years.

In its presentation, Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services Senior Vice President Russell T Ahmed said the smartphone market is growing at around 20 percent, which is favourable for mobile apps and gaming.

Md Shofiul Alam, founder and chief executive of Belancer, a gaming company, said local companies can target the 35 crore Bangla-speaking people of the world, before targeting the international market. "After taking control of this market, we can go to compete in the international market."

Mustafa Jabbar, president of BASIS, said 80 percent of the people in West Bengal and Tripura are using Bangladeshi software to write in Bangla. “Similarly, we can also leave a mark in the Bangla content gaming and mobile app market of those areas."

Shameem Ahsan, former president of BASIS, said companies will have to spend 30 percent of their expenditure for content development and 70 percent for marketing and promotion. "But here, our companies have no expenditure for marketing. ”

Quazi Jamil Azhar, president of the board of trustees of Bangladesh University, said: "We lost the local banking software sector market to foreign companies. We should now focus on the local app and gaming market, so that the foreign companies do not take over."

Under the 'Skills Development for Mobile Game and Application' project, the government is going to establish development institutes across the country. Besides, the ICT division will set up 30 mobile apps laboratory, training and testing points at the district level.

The government also plans to organise international mobile app expositions and apps and gaming fairs at the divisional level; and develop an application store where developers can upload their content.