Bangladesh and the Digital Silk Road: Shaping the Next Economic Era

Mohammad Maruf Hasan PhD :

The Digital Silk Road (DSR) is a key component of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) aimed at promoting international cooperation in digital infrastructure, technology, and cyberspace. After leaving LDC, the country used BRI to build critical infrastructure, as well as to use it in its overall foreign policy.
The main focus of Bangladesh and China’s partnership is to promote Bangladesh as a major trade and shipping hub in the Bay of Bengal. Since 2013, BRI has become the leading large-scale infrastructure effort of this century. Since 2013, Bangladesh has collaborated with China’s plan to create economic corridors throughout South Asia as a result of joining the BRI. Thanks to its position, fast-growing market, and need for new infrastructure, Bangladesh is set to gain a lot from BRI investments. On the other hand, these changes also include concerns about foreign relations, the risk of ever-increasing debt, and problems organizing reforms within countries.
A new digital frontier is being created by China’s Digital Silk Road (DSR), a fast-expanding cooperation with Bangladesh. However, the BRI is mostly defined by physical infrastructure like ports and highways. Through this partnership, Bangladesh has a rare opportunity to reform the government, promote an innovation-driven economy, and enter the digital age. With their assistance for projects like 5G trials, fibre-optic networks, smart cities, and rural connectivity, Chinese companies like Huawei, ZTE, and Alibaba Cloud are already changing Bangladesh’s digital environment. These initiatives are in line with Bangladesh’s “Digital Bangladesh” goal, which aims to diversify the country’s economy beyond clothing, improve e-governance, and lessen the digital gap. By offering improved bandwidth and secure communications, improved digital infrastructure may support SMEs’ integration into global value chains, support startups, e-commerce, fintech, and health tech, and grow the nation’s already sizable freelance IT industry.
Bangladesh’s government is derived fromthe e-government system. Soft infrastructure, e-governance, and digital trade have become essential components of Bangladesh’s BRI involvement as it expands its economic relations with China.
In order to modernize Bangladesh’s governance, draw in foreign investment, and empower entrepreneurs in the rapidly expanding digital economy, Chinese tech companies assist the nation in developing digital public systems such as smart surveillance, e-taxation, and disaster response.
In Bangladesh, pilot projects in digital education and AI-driven agriculture seek to improve public service delivery, decrease corruption, and increase transparency. Improving e-commerce integration is essential as the nation struggles with expanding populations and bureaucratic inefficiencies. Thanks to its BRI digital expertise, China is positioned as the perfect partner to facilitate this change.China will be the best partner. G giant Chinese e-commerce groups such as Alibaba Group have demonstrated interest in the digital consumer market in Bangladesh.
As Bangladesh has a growing middle class and one of the youngest populations in the world, it is fertile ground for a digital trade ecosystem. Efforts are underway through BRI-related activities, Digital platformer customs, and logistics systems. Introduce cross-border payment systems to curtail the dependence on the traditional banking interface. Integrate Bangladesh’s trade data into regional platforms to increase efficiency and transparency, such as Real-time customs clearance and logistics tracking, international electronic payments, and platform-based trade in goods and services.
Chinese fintech leaders are to facilitate RMB-Taka settlements, QR-based payments, and same-day payment gateways for e-commerce consumers. This initiative can lessen Bangladesh’s reliance on dollar-based settlements, reduce forex costs for SMEs, and broaden the scale of inclusion for SMEs through platforms such as bKash, such that these can be linked to Alipay or WeChat Pay.
Smart cities and surveillance infrastructure from the Digital Silk Road (DSR) perspective are one of the most transformative and controversial aspects of all these aspects. Via this effort, China exports its cutting-edge technologies, know-how, and urban governance models to other developing countries, part of a wider digital ecosystem that has Chinese companies as its centre, with its vision of data governance and technological control.
As one of the beneficiaries of the BRI, Bangladesh has gradually become more of an integral part of the digital arm of the BRI, while DSR provides promising tools to accelerate economic modernization and progress in the urban sphere, at the same time introducing crucial questions relating to digital sovereignty, surveillance ethics, and strategic orientation.
Another heroization of the smart city concept, as Dhaka, Chattogram, and growing economic zones have grown, Bangladesh has witnessed a development of smart infrastructure projects, which Chinese enterprises are supporting. The Safe City Dhaka initiative, which Bangladesh and Huawei have pioneered, has added state-of-the-art surveillance cameras, integrated traffic monitoring, and advanced emergency management capabilities to Dhaka. This work corresponds to “Safe City” programs, which have been introduced across Africa and South Asia. In the same vein, Dhaka and Chattogram are advancing smart traffic management initiatives where there are habitual traffic jams and air quality problems.
The introduction of Chinese AI-driven traffic control systems and real-time data analysis is being implemented in Dhaka and Chattogram to improve traffic flow and safety. Concurrently, joint Chinese efforts in urban utility digitization are to reduce losses and optimize service delivery in crowded urban regions; these include smart water metering and advanced electric grid upgrades.
Bangladesh is transforming its economy, governance, and inclusivity by providing access to international markets through smartphones, digital trade, and e-commerce integration under the BRI, especially helping women-led companies and entrepreneurs in rural areas.
This digital transformation, a component of China’s Digital Silk Road, promotes e-governance and smart cities but raises questions about sovereignty, digital reliance, and monitoring. Instead of continuing to be a low-end growth economy dependent on foreign digital infrastructure, Bangladesh can use this transformation to close gaps in education, governance, and opportunity if handled carefully with robust data protection, diverse partnerships, and open oversight.

(The author is Associate Professor, School of International Studies, Sichuan University, Sichuan, China)