Ali Abbasov
Azerbaijan's Ministry of Communications and Information Technology has reviewed progress in the ICT sector over the first six months of the year.
Minister Ali Abbasov told the review meeting that revenues from the ICT sector and postal services were AZN 638.1m ($794.4m) in the first six months of 2010, 28% up on last year.
Growth in the sector was 28.2% in six months. In telecommunications growth was 29.6% and in postal services 19.5%.
Abbasov said that revenue from ICT and postal services accounted for 1.6% of Azerbaijan's GDP.
The minister said that the private sector produced almost 80% of revenue, while mobile communications accounted for 75% of revenue.
Ambitious plans
Ali Abbasov spoke to journalists today about the ministry's objectives for the rest of the year.
"We are planning to complete the digitization of the country's telephone system by the end of this year on the basis of modern technology which will remain competitive for 10 to 15 years. In the transfer to digital television and radio broadcasting, after Baku and Absheron the process will be stepped up in the country’s regions by the end of 2010," Abbasov said.
He said that the creation of e-government based on the one-stop-shop principle by the end of 2010 was one of the ministry's main challenges.
"We are also working to expand use of the Internet in the country and improve its quality. We will try to speed things up by the end of 2010 and achieve a level of Internet usage in our country twice as high as the world average," the minister said.
He said there was a plan to increase the number of mobile communications users so that the whole population used mobile phones by the end of 2010.
On the creation of a Regional Innovation Zone in Azerbaijan, the minister said that the main challenge by the end of 2010 was to ensure access for Azerbaijani IT companies to foreign markets and to improve their competitiveness. "We have prepared several legislative documents for this purpose," Abbasov said.
The minister said that the project for Azerpocht (Azeri Post Office) branches to provide financial services would be officially launched in December.
"This has already been coordinated with the leadership of the International Postal Union and the World Bank. The leaders of these agencies will arrive in Azerbaijan in December to officially launch the project. Next year Azerpocht will enter the banking services market as quite a competitive enterprise in the banking sector," Abbasov said.
1 news.az, Interfax-Azerbaijan
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