The Ministry of communications has prepared a draft program of development of Digital economy and sent it for approval to the Department concerned. This was announced by Deputy Minister of Telecom and mass communications Alexey Kozyrev, speaking at the conference “Challenges of the digital economy. Regional specifics and international experience” on Thursday, April 27. He expects that the project will be submitted to the government on 11 may, and at the end of next month will begin its public discussion.
The program is developed on behalf of the President of Russia Vladimir Putin. Its essence is the creation of “legal, technical, organizational and financial conditions for the development of the digital economy” in Russia and its integration into the space of the digital economy member States of the Eurasian economic Union.
familiarized with the current version of the program in which the priority is given to the development of eight areas: regulation; information infrastructure; research and development; personnel and education; information security; governance; smart city; digital health.
The communications Ministry refused to comment on the authenticity of the document, but the description of the directions coincide with those that are cited in his speech at the conference Kozyrev. The accuracy of the document and also confirmed a source in one of departments involved in discussing the programme.
The digitalization of all
The draft program summarizes the main goals and targets, which should reach the Russian economy during the implementation of the program. For example, by 2025 the number of people leaving high-tech professionals under the age of 40 years receiving education in Russia should be reduced three times compared to 2017. By 2020, the share of households equipped with broadband Internet access at speeds of 100 Mbit/s in Russia should reach 50%, and by 2025 and 97% (the current figure is not given). Russia needs to move from 12th place (in 2017) in the ranking of cyber security, drawn up on the basis of the index of the International telecommunication Union, in the tenth in the year 2020 and eighth in 2025-Proportion of services provided by the authorities in electronic form, should reach 50% by 2020 and to 80% after eight years (the current figure is not specified). By 2025, eight Russian cities should be in the top 50 priority international ratings in the direction of “Smart city”. In 12 cities should be organized trial operation of the unmanned public transport in 50 cities will be introduced the total single pass. The average life expectancy by the end of the program implementation is expected to increase to 76 years.
The only graphs which remain unfilled in the program, is the cost of implementation, but indicated two sources of funding — the Federal budget and extrabudgetary sources.
As stated also speaking at the conference, Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, today all the leading countries have focused on the digital economy in one form or another. “Someone puts the emphasis on the development of the Internet itself, someone- on the introduction of digital technologies in industrial production, we study the experience of different countries”, — said Deputy Prime Minister. According to him, at the Krasnoyarsk economic forum, held last week, discussed the issue of execution orders of the President, and during the discussion it was concluded that the program needs to identify the parts not on a functional basis, and other criteria. “The first part is that we can quickly implement, not reinventing the wheel. Second — things that are already there, but are not yet dominant trends, and we can be among the leaders in their implementation”, — said Deputy Prime Minister. In another direction, he said, should be part of things, “which has not yet appeared and are being developed”. “Now in the draft programme there is no such distinction; rather, it is based on branch principle. But <…> I think still need another slice,” — said Dvorkovich.
The presentation of electronic textbooks. 2013
Photo: Stanislav Krasilnikov / TASS
Digital plans without reality
Also speaking at the conference the head of the development Fund of Internet initiatives Kirill Varlamov said that the program required a greater connection with the overall economy. “So the program was not aimed at infrastructure development and development of socio-economic initiatives. Want more prizemlennosti, a greater understanding of how these technologies will be used, what would be the effect of this. Necessary to fight against digital feudalism, where each Agency uses its own platforms and technologies, regions spend enormous resources to create their own solutions. You need to ensure that the program focused more on the platforms and standards”, — said Varlamov.
According to another speaker, Executive Director for government and regulatory Affairs IBM Oleg Bajova, now the largest GDP per capita in Qatar is $129 thousand, “But there are a few companies where one employee makes more than $1 million, for example Google. In IBM, the average is $210 thousand; we understand that behind,” Byakhov said. In his view, the digital economy should not be from power, but from the people. “In the digital economy, the leaders are not “Rostelecom”, “rosseti” and “rostec”, and those who satisfy the needs of the people. Until we begin to think in these categories, the asset will depreciate. No program will help stop this process,” Byakhov said.
According to the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the share of digital economy in the GDP of developed countries is 5.5%, developing to 4.9%. While in Russia the figure was 2.4% by the end of 2016.
Head of export development of Google in Russia Maxim Braverman at the conference noted that in Russia there are a number of companies whose productivity “is not the same as Google, but close to it.” For example, “Kaspersky Lab”, the developers of the sites, games and others. “There is a very successful Russian developers and companies, there is no need to create anything, the question is how to maintain and multiply,” said Braverman.
Another representative of a technology company, who requested anonymity, said that all targets mentioned in the program, or already fulfilled, or not ambitious enough. “To increase by 50% the number of international patents is easy — they are now virtually none. IT company and now we are an attractive employer,” said the source .
In particular, talking about the unit “personnel and education”, Kozyrev said that this is a key resource for the digital economy. “We understand that such an economy will significantly change the labor market. We develop measures to create professionals to support new technologies, courses for fast training key areas”, — said the Deputy Minister. Speaking about the public administration, Kozyrev said that the program describes the mechanisms to minimize the interaction between officials and citizens, the interaction between society and the state with the application of artificial intelligence.
