Romania – the need for digitalisation

Bucharests playing host to a big tech event is an opportunity to discuss the stage of the country's digitalisation .

Corina Cristea, 04.11.2022, 14:00

The 84 foremost technology companies in the world are
in Bucharest these days to unveil a host of products and services at the
biggest tech event in Central and Eastern Europe called GoTech World. Apart
from the exhibition component, the event also hosts 122 sessions held on 11
conference stages and bringing together 130 speakers, influencers, experts and
entrepreneurs from the IT world.

The Romanian
minister for research, innovation and digitalisation Sebastian Burduja, who
attended the opening of the event, emphasised that digital transformation,
research and innovation are important, they can drive economic growth, and
Romania has the most important ingredient of all: the human resources:

Romanian specialists are appreciated around the world
and can compete with any of the world’s biggest specialists. We must take
advantage of this. We must invest in productivity, because economic growth is
productivity times population. Romania cannot rely on demographics, it must
rely on productivity and this means investing in IT & C, innovation and
research.

President Klaus Iohannis also visited GoTech World. He
said that in the last decade, the tech industry has grown by at least 10% every
year, leading to the technological progress of the Romanian economy. At the
same time, the pace of transition to digital public services is still slow in
Romania and public authorities must take fast and concrete steps in this
respect, the president also said.

The government has all the necessary instruments and
funding to implement a digitalisation strategy countrywide, prime minister Nicolae Ciucă weighed in. The digital revolution and
the new technologies are an opportunity to reduce the gap between Romania and
other countries in Europe who understood the importance of the new technologies
in the modernisation of public services. Action will be taken in several
important areas, namely public services, the private sector and high speed
connectivity, the prime minister explained. He also recalled a joint project with
the Republic of Moldova, a country with remarkable results in the area of
digitalisation, aiming to create a digital space on both sides of the Prut
river that separates the two countries.

Iurie Ţurcanu, Moldova’s deputy prime minister
responsible for digitalisation, spoke about his country’s achievements, while emphasising
the constant support received from Romania. Together with our development
partners we created a government cloud, a data exchange platform and citizens’
portals, with people now able to access remotely all the most important state
services. In this process, we established good synergy with the Romanian
government. At the beginning of this year, we signed a memorandum of
collaboration in the area of digital development and together pledged to create
a joint digital space, the Moldovan official told the participants of the tech
event hosted by Bucharest. (CM)