Serbian Government Starts Development of E-Governance

12 July 2006

The Government of Serbia will invest, by the end of 2007, 34 million EUR in electronic governance, announced Minister of Finance Mladjan Dinkic. The investment has been included in the first sector plan under the auspices of the National Investment Plan in the area of science and electronic governance, adopted recently by the Government.

The National Investment Plan aims to improve the standards of living and employment rates in Serbia, while the first sector plan has the goal to keep young scientists and researchers in Serbia and assist the development of Serbian economy.

The projects in the area of e-governance will be implemented by the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Science and Environmental Protection, and the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government.

The key project, the implementation of which starts on July 15, relate to the domain of efficient local self-government (introduction of information systems that provide for expedient issuance of documentation), electronic public procurements and unified computer network for all state institutions, as well as the project of fiscal decentralization, which is to provide for a more efficient functioning of local self-government, especially in collection of taxes. 24 municipalities applied for the first project.

All networks of state bodies and institutions will be connected in a single computer system. The e-Serbia project should be completed by the end of 2008. According to the Government, the results of investments in science and research should be visible in three to four years, while the electronic governance project should yield results by the end of this year.