The digital economy has been one of the engines of Hungary’s economic growth, Minister for National Economy Mihály Varga said at the ministerial panel meeting of the conference of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Budapest.
At the event, the Budapest Call for Action, an action plan which aims to accelerate the implementation of the Connect 2020 Agenda adopted at the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in Busan, South Korea, last year, was adopted.
In 2014, fifty-two countries endorsed the “Busan Declaration on the Future Role of Telecommunications/ICTs in achieving sustainable development”. This document defines tangible and measurable ICT development objectives, for example, by 2020 55 per cent of households should have access to the internet and 60 per cent of individuals should be internet-users worldwide, Mihály Varga pointed out.
The Hungarian digital national action plan, which was adopted by the Government last year, contains development tasks to ensure very high-speed internet access of 30 Mbps for all households by 2018.
Speaking about Hungarian development objectives, the Minister said the Government has prioritized the bolstering of the role of digital economy. In the period until 2020, the Government foresees financial and other types of aid for several thousands of companies, mostly SMEs, including communication, media companies, content providers, software developers and innovative startup companies.
Among the other goals the Minister mentioned that until 2020 digital training courses for several hundreds of thousands of people will be offered, as one of the serious problems in internet usage in Hungary is that about three million people (30 per cent of the population) lack digital skills. The Hungarian government also steadily enriches the sphere of online governmental services and encourages citizens to use them. At least 40 different governmental services will be offered in Hungary by 2016. In parallel with service developments, special programs are launched to motivate the use of the internet in all of the governmental offices.
The Hungarian ICT sector contribution to the GDP is above the European average – it reaches 12 percent, the Minister stressed. The sector’s contribution to Hungarian exports is 8.3 percent according to the 2014 statistics, while directly and indirectly, about 400 thousand people are employed in the info-communication segment.
(Ministry for National Economy)
