Serbia to join EU's IT development programme

On Friday, October 23rd, the Ministry of Telecommunications of Serbia and the European Commission's Commissariat for Information Technologies will sign the document in Brussels, which anticipates EU's support to Serbia in development of information-communication technologies.

The Information-Communication Technologies Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP) under the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme will be signed by Serbian Minister of Telecommunications, Jasna Matić, and the EU Commisar for Information Technologies and Media, Viviana Reading.

Total budget of the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme for the period 2007-2013 amounts to 3.6 billion EUR, while the budget for information technologies amounts to 728m EUR. As the people from the Ministry explained, how much money Serbia is going to get from that budget depends on the number of submitted and accepted projects.

The aim of the programme is to give rise to development of leading ICT markets, especially in the areas of public importance, and to create new business opportunities for small and mid-sized enterprises. According to the announcement, ICT PSP will help Serbia overcome the obstacles by stimulating the use of technologies in the fields of high development in the sectors of public importance, such as health services and government administration.

The Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP) is EU's programme whose aim is to stimulate competitiveness of European enterprises, small and mid-sized enterprises in particular. The programme provides an impulse for broad use of information-communication technologies and contributes to development of sustainable, competitive and comprehensive information society.