Promise fills glass only to a half - How much did governmental program do for information technologies industry development?

There is no industrial branch that will develop successfully without developed IT sector, state secretary at the Minister of Telecommunications,Stefan Lazarevic said a couple of days ago and confirmed once more a well-known fact- information technologies are the future of the economy.

However, Serbian IT sector was fully developing without the support of the state (and sometimes with a number of obstacles) before this year it finally became the officials’ focus of interest.

When last year, the Strategy fordevelopment and support to information technologies, businessmen supportedit but they did not miss to express skepticism according to its future results,

How far did it get half a year later? The Action Plan for the Strategy implementation has been adopted as it was announced in early June, without big media publicity or engagement of the Government to present it to the public.

It more closely defines steps in a couple of fields: IT for entrepreneurs and start up projects, subsidies for software companies, support to exporters,development of legislation framework, development of education and promotional campaign.

eKapija asked Milan Solaja, director of Vojvodina IKT cluster who played an active role in the whole process, what has been done in practice and how important was this support project really significant for businessmen .

Despite the fact that, according to our collocutor’s opinion, the final text of the Strategy contains “some elements which do not belong here and which can be counterproductive and what was indicated to the governmental officials”, he says:

- The most positive is the fact that for the first time in history we got the Strategy focused extremely on information technologies. That is in fact the most important about this document.

Information technologies became the focus of the public and more and more people is beginning to understand what it is all about as well as the young people interested in IT studies because they see this sector does not have the unemployed.

- It is, however, positive that prerequisites for further sector development are being created – Milan Solaja says.

The Ministry of Finance also points out the importance of IT industry popularization.

- The promotional campaign during May and June on social networks and television resulted in even in increased interest in faculties in this field.At the Belgrade-based Faculty of Electrical Engineering, this year three candidates applied for each budget vacancy and there was also an increase at the Faculty in Nis and Novi Sad – Jasna Matic, a counselor at the Ministry of Finance and Economy, says for eKapija.

Good start for start up

The Ministry of Finance initiated Startup Srbija, for the support of the start up projects. Within the initiative, apart from financial support to best prepared projects (in June, a call for grants was released which is valid till mid November), mediation between those with ideas and those who know howto implement them. This means, between those who have money and those with good projects, those with growing business and those looking for the job, etc.

- It is positive example but we should wait for the results. I hope the announcements of the Minister of Finance and Economy will not come true that announced financial support will turn into support “in nature” through legal usage of office space of newly-built park at Zvezdara or in Microsoft licenses –Milan Solaja thinks.

Minus

Director of the Vojvodina IKT cluster thinks that the biggest failure of the state as of the adoption of the Strategy is the fact that at the initiative of the Fiscal Council, a provision implying that local IT companies would be free from paying health insurance and unemployed contributions, although the item was in the Action plan.

The Fiscal Council, however, opposed to this measure with an explanation that it would present “rough violation of principles of tax justice and social solidarity”.

- I think that the Ministry of Finance and Economy completely neglected it. The measure was well- developed and would be a significant support to the companies while tax measures would remain intact. Instead of defending its own measure,the Minister of Finance and Economy decided to listen to the recommendation of the Fiscal Council. It is completely incomprehensible and absolutely without arguments – our collocutor says.

Realization is starting

What we expected the most from the Strategy was support to software export. Steps are minor but progress is visible.

- Serbia registered to be country-partner at the biggest IT fair of the Middle East and Africa which is scheduled for October – Gitex in Dubai where 15 our companies have the opportunity to present at the markets undergoing huge expansion, along with the publicity that a country-partner has- Jasna Matic says for eKapija.

At the competition for the support of exporters which the Serbia Investment and Export Promotion Agency (SIEPA) published every year, in 2013 there is an option of assigning funds for software localization and intellectual property protection so some of our IT companies applied for that and were approved funds, our collocutor says.

However, most of the Action Plan activities are still waiting for the implementation.

There is a number of positive things- some take a lot for preparation, others are to be developed in details and for the third ones it would be better if they were not here – Milan Solaja says.

- For example, presentation of measures for support of the IT industry to the largest world multinational companies instead of promoting these measures to local IT industry – he explains.

When you sum it up, results differ.

- The question is whether the glass is half full or half empty. Since I am an optimist, as for me, it is always half full and as for the results, they should be considered. The implementation of measures from the Strategy has just started – he concludes.

For more detailed information on the Action plan for the implementation of the IT Support and Development Strategy:

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