On Tuesday, the Summit of Information and Communication Technologies was opened in Moldova.

The summit was organized by the Ministry of Information Technologies and Telecommunications, the Association of IT-private Companies, as well as the CEED project (Competitiveness Efficiency and Enterprise Development), which is financed by the USA International Development Agency (USAID).

Prime Minister Vlad Filat, who spoke at the summit, said that the Moldovan Government together with the World Bank (WB) begin the implementation of the “Electronic Government” project.

“For this purpose a group, consisting of experts from the USA, Estonia, Singapore, New Zealand and Great Britain, will arrive to Moldova in the near time. They will render consultative assistance to Moldovan experts in creating the electronic Government”, Filat said.

The Premier said that Moldova already concluded an agreement with Information Development Agency of Singapore, which agreement give the right to adopt its experience in organizing the activities of the electronic Government.

Filat said that his Government’s commitment to facilitate the development of information and communication technologies by all means is expressed in transmitting the governmental sittings in on-line regime.

Minister of Information Technologies and Telecommunications Alexandru Oleinic touched upon the problems, which curb the IT-development in the country. He designated the insufficient infrastructure development, for which reason only 6% of the population has an access to the wideband Internet (whereas in Europe 20%) among these problems.

The minister mentioned also a number of problems, which have a negative impact on the Moldovan IT-exports.

USA Ambassador to Moldova Asif J. Chaudhry underscored Moldova’s IT-successes, reached for the last several years. In his words, the share of this sector in Moldova’s GDP reached 10%.

“The share of the Moldovan agrarian sector in the GDP is practically equal to the IT-sector share”, the Ambassador said and added that 40 thousand people, whose salaries reached the level of the average salary of the financial sector, are occupied in this sector.

The USA Ambassador stressed high interest on the part of foreign investors in this sector of the Moldovan national economy and communicated that during the last week three large investors addressed him in this connection.