The ICT sector is a relatively young one, where the main changes occurred starting with 2000, Minister of Information and Communication Technology Vasile Botnari said in an interview for IPN, produced on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the declaration of Moldova’s Independence. The official noted that owing to the efforts made at multiple levels and the openness of society to what is new, the ICT sector saw a development that was spectacular in parts and today is one of the most developed and dynamic sectors in the country.

The minister said the ICT sector’s share in the country’s Gross Domestic Product is about 8%, with a market value of over 8.6 billion lei. “During the last few years for example, important investments were made in mobile communications networks and services. Currently, over 35% of the country’s territory and 65% of the population are covered with new generation 4G services. This means access speed and data transfer at a high speed that, depending on region, can reach 300 Mbps. For comparison, I can tell that at world level, the high-speed Internet in a lot of states is only 2 Mbps,” stated Vasile Botnari.

Also, the process of extending the fiber optic networks all over the country is in full swing and at least 60% of the households are expected to have access to high-speed Internet by a connection of minimum 30 Mbps towards 2020. But the measures taken so far can help achieve this objective faster.

“An important, even revolutionary step was taken recently, which in the near future is projected to generate a jump in the liberalization of the local communications services. I refer to the adoption by Parliament of the Law on Access to Properties and Shared Use of Infrastructure Associated with Public Electronic Communications Networks. The new law ensures shared access to the existent communications infrastructure for all the communications operators at reasonable tariffs, guaranteed by the law,” said the minister.

He noted that the authorities are powerfully motivated to contribute to the removal of the administrative barriers placed in the way of entrepreneurs working in the IT sector and to ensure a competitive development environment. In this regard, we have a number of projects that are at different implementation stages. The main element with which we want to stimulate first of all this area is the creation of IT parks and also the development of start-ups.