Freelancer.com, a leading freelancing marketplace, on Wednesday launched its localised site for Bangladesh- freelancer.com.bd.
David Harrison, vice president, Freelancer.com launched the site at an event at Bangladesh Association of Software Information Services (BASIS) office.
Since its inception in 2004, the Freelancer.com has approximate 6,700,000 users from 234 countries.
The presence of freelancer.com in Bangladesh is expected to provide opportunities for millions of Bangladeshis engaged in small to medium scale enterprises in the country.
During his presentation, Harrison said Freelancer.com.bd is part of a global roll out plan of the online marketplace. Freelancer.com has been launching localised sites all around the glob. They have around 15 localised websites at the moment and want to deploy even more as they go along. Freelancer.com supports around 12-14 languages and currencies.
Freelancer plans to include Bangla language and Taka in its service soon.
Later in an interview, Harrison said currently Freelancer.com has 1,78,000 Bangladeshi users.
He also informed that Bangladeshi freelancers have earned around USD $ 3,60,000 in 2011 and since 2004 they have earned USD $ 12,00,000.
When asked about Bangladesh’s global position, he said Bangladesh is ranked 6th in the world ranking in terms of users.
India is at number 1 and Philippines ranks number 7th. The other top 7 countries are US at number 2, Pakistan at number 3, UK at number 4, Australia at 5, Canada at number 8, Indonesia ranks 9th and Romania is at number 10 in the international ranking.
Harrison also gave figures of jobs worked and bid on in India, Bangladesh and Philippines.
In India the number of jobs worked is 539,472 and the number of jobs bid is 1,563,193.
In Bangladesh the numbers of jobs worked and bid are 114,440 and 6,71,826 respectively while in Philippines the numbers are 50,588 for jobs worked and 4,31,622 for jobs bid.
A Freelancer.com record says top skills in Bangladesh include data entry, Excel, facebook, logo design, copy writing, and Photoshop.
Harrison said he sees Bangladesh becoming one of true powerhouses of digital economy with all these skills.
Source: The Daily Star
