Belarus’ authorities switching to electronic documents

Belarusian authorities are switching to electronic documents and reducing the use of hard copies, Director of the Information Technologies Department of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technologies of Belarus Vladimir Lebedev said at a roundtable session organized by the company IBA on 4 April, BelTA has learnt.

Belarus is implementing an inter-agency system of electronic documents in all government agencies. “Paper documents will fall into oblivion sooner or later,” the official said.

Vladimir Lebedev noted that there is a common belief that the government sector impedes the spread of high technologies, however, a group of South Korea experts in electronic government that has recently paid a two-week visit to Belarus proved it wrong. The South Korea specialists came to Belarus to work out recommendations. Belarus is 63rd in the e-government readiness ranking. “The negative expectations of the South Korea experts did not prove true,” he said.

Director of the National Center for Electronic Services Andrei Ilyin noted that his organization and IBA plan to launch a service enabling government agencies to address various tasks using a web interface without buying software.

“How do new technologies benefit businesses? They offer transparency and speed. They give an opportunity to intensify business operations. This is very important for business owners, because they are interested in enhancing efficiency of their businesses,” President of IBA Group Sergei Levteyev said.

Director of the High-Tech Park administration Valery Tsepkalo noted that Belarus has made much progress in software engineering. Belarusian IT companies are able to execute orders of the most demanding customers. Today it is high time to restructure business processes and expand the use of information technologies.