From November 20 to 24, 2023, two of our members, including a general manager, visited Bangladesh.
Since we had no connections in Bangladesh, we teamed up with BJIT, a company with great strength in IT there, for our business meetings. BJIT is a global company with offices in seven countries and 800 employees, and it drew attention this April with a capital and business alliance with Marubeni.
The trip had two goals: developing offshore partners and recruiting IT talent overseas. To be honest, recruitment will still take time, but we will move forward with negotiations and preparations so that offshore development can become a reality in the near future.
We had only three full days on the ground, but we made the most of them.
| Local companies and organizations (BJIT head office, universities, and others) | 5 organizations |
| Japanese companies and organizations (JETRO, Marubeni, and others) | 5 organizations |
| Others | 8 places |
Bangladesh lies to the east of India, about 5,000 km west of Japan. It is very friendly toward Japan, and even its national flag looks much like Japan's. Islam is the state religion, 90 percent of people have never drunk alcohol, and drinking tea called chai is popular. Japanese companies such as UNIQLO, Taisei Corporation, and Mitsubishi Corporation are active there, mainly in apparel and infrastructure.
The population is about 170 million and the average age is said to be around 26, so it is a lively country with many young people. Although almost everyone speaks Bengali as their native language, English is very widely used, and we felt it was close to native level. In Japan, students learn English as a subject, while in Bangladesh, classes are taught in English. There is a lot we can learn from this. We also met many engineers and students who want to become engineers, and felt an energy that Japan may have partly lost.
