Business news

MINSK, 19 April (BelTA) - About $1 billion will be invested in the Belarusian sector of information and communication technologies (ICT) before 2020, Belarus Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Kalinin told media after the official opening of the international expo of telecommunications, information and banking technologies TIBO 2016, BelTA has learned.

“The exhibition and forum TIBO generate sincere interest in the society of both Belarus and foreign countries. It proves that the IT sector has been successfully developing and helps develop all other economic branches. Belarus has adopted its national ICT development program for five years. We plan to implement large-scale projects to the total tune of about $1 billion,” noted Anatoly Kalinin.

The deputy prime minister explained that the funds would be used to renew technological equipment.

“Belarus can be proud of its achievements in the IT development. In the ITU rankings Belarus goes 36^th in ICT development and is leading among the CIS countries. Since 2012 we have been in the list of top 30 in custom software development. In 2015 software production totaled nearly $800 million. Of them, exports made up more than $700 million,” stressed Anatoly Kalinin. According to him, in order to attract effective investment the country has developed the state program to develop digital economy and information society in 2016-2020.

“TIBO is a continuation of international exhibition events which were launched in Barcelona and Hannover this year. In my view, the most interesting stand today is that of the Ministry of Communication and Information Technologies. Apart from that, good stands have been presented by ZTE, Nokia, Huawei. I think every participant and every visitor will satisfy their interest,” the Vice Premier said.

The international exhibition TIBO 2016 is underway in Minsk from 19 to 22 April. Among the guests of the exhibition is Secretary General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Houlin Zhao, Director General of the Executive Committee of the Regional Commonwealth in the field of Communications Nurudin Mukhitdinov, head of the ITU Area Office for the CIS Orozobek Kaiykov.

The TIBO 2016 exposition features a number of themed areas taking into account the priorities of the state policy in the ITC field: National Information Infrastructure, Digital Economy, E-Government and Electronic Interaction, ICT in the Social and Cultural Sector, Digital Transformation Strategy, Robotics, Digital Technology in Printing and Publishing Activity.

Partaking in the TIBO 2016 will be more than 100 companies from 18 countries (Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany, Finland, Sweden, the UK, Turkey, China, the Republic of Korea, Japan, the United States).

The exhibition is held as part of the international forum on communications, information and banking technologies TIBO 2016.