Telephone Shilpa Sangstha to manufacture and market mobile phone by February

Prices will range from Tk 1,500 to Tk 10,000
Though late, Bangladesh will make mobile-phone sets of common and exclusive standards by next February to enter the market of this fastest-growing sector.
Telephone Shilpa San-gstha (Teshis), a state-owned company under the Telecom-munications Ministry, is going to manufacture and market the mobile-phone sets at prices ranging from Tk 1,500 to Tk 10,000 each.
The Telephone Shilpa Sangstha will also market its another new product, digital land telephone set, within this month (September) at Tk 500 to Tk 600 per set.
Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Post and Telecommunications Ministry Hasanul Huq Inu disclosed the latest developments in the domestic phone industry on Wednesday while briefing newsmen at the Jatiya Sangsad Media Centre over the outcome of today’ s committee meeting. He said master plans have been taken up to manufacture mobile phone and laptop computer sets by the Telephone Shilpa Sangstha to reach the high-tech ICT products at cheap costs to the people, particularly to students and rural people. “As a result, it would make the company profitable, save foreign currencies and materialize the grand-alliance government’s vision of digital Bangladesh,” the leader of JSD, a partner of the Awami League-led grand coalition, told the reporters.
He said the standing committee discussed affairs of the Telephone Shilpa Sangstha, now a losing concern in the state sector, to make it profitable through introducing production of multifarious products in line with demand of the time.
Under the bailout plan for the moribund but vital industrial unit, the Telephone Shilpa Sangstha will also manufacture electric wire and appliances.
The lawmakers from the meeting also advised the Sangstha to make a plan for generating renewable energy from solar power.
Inu said the Cable Shilpa Sangstha in Khulna will set up a new factory to manufacture optical fibre which will meet about 75 percent of the domestic demand.
He said the new optical-fibre project will involve a cost of around Tk 10 crore and the product will come into market by December 2010. “It would also save foreign currencies and make the company more profitable.”
The Cable Shilpa Sangstha, which presently runs with marginal profits, is now producing copper wire. It was also decided that the Cable Shilpa Sangstha will manufacture household electric wires and household telephone wires which would also save foreign exchanges and make the company more profitable. The meeting recommended that the equipment needed by various offices and departments of the government should be purchased from the government-run industries or companies, if those are manufactured.
Committee members Abdul Quddus, ASM Firoz, Solaiman Huq, Mozammel Huq and Golam Mostafa, and chief executives of BTCL and Cable Shilpa Sangshta were present at the press briefing.

Courtesy of The BD Today