The Deputy Minister of ITC Vitalie Tarlev chaired today the first meeting of the Working Group on drafting the Strategy for Digital Innovation Ecosystem Development and Start-up Support created under the aegis of the MITC, which includes representatives of the public institutions concerned, development partners, academia and IT industry.
This policy document aims to continue the Government's efforts to develop the IT sector after the Strategy for the IT strategy Competitiveness Development, approved in 2015, has been implemented to a great extent. This fact was publicly stated by the Prime Minister of the Republic of Moldova Pavel Filip at the opening of Moldova IT Excellence Center „Tekwill” in March this year.
This objective was the main topic of the ministerial meeting within Moldova ICT Summit 2017, where the unanimous view was that the Government should continue this sustained effort to support one of the most promising sectors of the national economy that offers jobs for highly qualified specialists and the highest salaries for talented and passionate about digital creativity young people. The actions undertaken by the MITC are global and effective, but it is necessary to improve the institutional and legislative framework to support a continuous development of information technologies and ensure high survival rates for newly created IT companies in the country.
Vitalie Tarlev mentioned that the IT industry is steadily growing, especially as a result of the actions already implemented. Thus, only in 2016 the sector’s growth was doubled. But the share of the IT sector is not yet so significant, although the interest of investors is very high. That is why there is a need for a new impetus, new actions to achieve the goal of strengthening the IT sector and providing IT companies with real opportunities for growth and development here in the country, the Deputy Minister said.
According to the study conducted with the support of the USAID Competitiveness Project, which is the basis of the new Strategy, the Republic of Moldova could be even more internationally competitive in the IT field due to its mobility and the promotion of certain products in various niche markets, geographical and intercultural advantageous positioning, linguistic diversity, creative interest, and the implementation of certain state-of-the-art technologies, including IT training, etc.
The digital innovation ecosystem development is also the subject of another cooperation project between the MITC and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which has employed a team of experts to study the profile and opportunities of the Republic of Moldova in this respect and which has to prepare recommendations for policies and strategies in this regard. In the context, on June 28, 2017, the MITC will organize a workshop with the support of the ITU, where the preliminary results of the „National Framework for Digital Innovation” will be presented.
Currently, the software product market is USD 22 million, and the value of exported software products is USD 79 million. More than 400 active IT companies with about 10000 employees are registered in the Republic of Moldova. The total volume of sales in the IT and communications sector in 2016 exceeded 10 billion lei. The Government of the Republic of Moldova applies a support policy for the IT sector; the adjustment of the relevant legal framework for the implementation of the Law on IT Parks is on the stage of its completion; a number of tax incentives for IT professionals are implemented; centers of excellence in the field are created; the policy providing access to the national labor market to highly qualified staff from abroad in order to transfer modern technologies and know-how.
