The Government of Serbia will have five priorities in the upcoming period in the field of telecommunications and information society; these are: further development of the infrastructure, e-administration, education, employment and the establishment and development of cyber safety, stated Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign and Internal Trade and Telecommunications Rasim Ljajić.
Opening the 21st Telecommunications Forum – TELFOR 2013, Ljajić stated that telecommunications and IT have a significant contribution to the growth of GDP, employment and investments in the current year.
Ljajić recalled that last year, 230 million euros were invested in the telecommunications sector, and that the share of that sector in the GDP equals 5.5% which demonstrates its potential.
According to him, half of the total revenues in that sector, which equal 1.5 billion euros, come from mobile telephony, a quarter from fixed telephony, and the rest from Internet, cable operators and other services.
The growth of the Internet market, which doubled its revenues in 2012 compared to 2008, is especially significant, stated Minister Ljajić.
He added that this year, 2.4 million Internet users were registered in Serbia, and that 2.6 million citizens use a computer daily, 800,000 citizens use e-administration services, and 900,000 citizens bought goods and services using the Internet.
All this indicates the potential, possibilities and opportunities in that market, stated Ljajić.
Ljajić noted that, thanks to higher-education institutions and the educated workforce, foreign companies recognized Serbia’s potential in the IT sector.
He recalled that in the last year, the Government has signed agreements on cooperation in the field of ICT with the United States of America, China, Great Britain, Azerbaijan, as well as a trilateral agreement with Macedonia and Montenegro.
The value of the IT market ranges between 400 and 550 million euros with a growth opportunity, although only 60 euros per capita are invested in that sector.
TELFOR is being held in “Sava Centar” from 26th to 28th of November; and admission is free for all visitors.
270 out of the 327 submitted research papers were accepted and will be presented at this year’s TELFOR.
15 companies will participate in the exhibition segment of the Forum, and 10 will have commercial presentations.
This year, for the first time, autocomputing will be presented – the television of the future which is based on cloud technologies.
The organizers of the forum are the Telecommunications Society, Belgrade; the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Belgrade; and IEE Serbia and Montenegro, in cooperation with “Telekom”, “Vlatkom” and other companies. The forum was supported by the Ministry of Foreign and Internal Trade and Telecommunications.
In addition to the presentations of numerous research papers, TELFOR visitors will be able to attend the exhibition of Post Serbia entitled “The beginnings of Serbian telephony – from 1883 to 1912”.
