MOSCOW, October 25 (Itar-Tass) - IT-industry is of paramount importance for the development of the Russian economy, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Friday at a government meeting, which discussed the country’s strategy of development of information technologies for the period of 2014-2020 and a longer period up to 2025.
“This sector is a key one from the point of view of the development of the economy as a whole,” he noted, adding that the Russian government pinned great hopes on this strategy as a tool to boost the competitive edge of the Russian economy.
“New technologies are called to ensure not only information security, not only the efficiency of state administration, but, in the long run, the quality of education, medical and social services, in a word, everything that is important for our people,” he stressed.
In his words, the IT sector is one of the most dynamically developing economic sectors. “Over the past ten years, Russia’s market growth has left behind the world’s average,” he said.
He expressed confidence that Russia had good prospects for further development of the IT sector, as well as of science, education and other sectors linked with information technologies. “We have considerable resources to further expand the IT sector by about ten or more percent a year,” Medvedev said. “The growth of the IT sector in general outstrips the growth of the country’s gross domestic products.”
The Russian prime minister noted that Russia is among the world’s few countries, which have their own IT sectors and their own national Internet search engines. “That is why the majority of countries use global products while we use mostly ours,” he noted, adding that it was of great importance not only because of considerations of prestige but rather because it is an indicator of the sector development.
At the same time, he admitted that the share of Russian IT services on global market was still inconsiderable. “The growth stems from the domestic demand, which, to a greater extent, has been formed by the states,” he explained. The state, in his words, continues to be the biggest client of this sector. Thus, a system of electronic document management is being created at the state order. “We continues to equip schools, universities, scientific institutions and organizations with computers and to develop the network of electronic services,” he noted.
Among the strategy’s priorities, according to Medvedev, are such tasks as to establish a continuous education network, from school to university and further on to post-graduate education, research organizations and to train highly-qualified personnel.
“It is obvious that we are at a stage of the development of the IT sector when state efforts are not enough,” Medvedev stressed and called on businesses to pay more interest to the development of the information technologies market. “We must learn to sell our IT products, including on foreign markets,” he noted, adding that efforts were needed to stimulate demand for such services.