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April 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 16
Belarus Hi-Tech Park exports up by a third
in 2018 to $1.414bn
In 2018 the export of the Hi-Tech Park (HTP) was estimated at $1.414bn, up 38% over 2017, BelTA reported on March 4. According to forecasts of international auditors, the HTP was to approach this target only by 2020. The biggest consumers of the HTP’s products are the European Union member states and the US (over 90%).
“The export growth surpassed all our expectations. The projections made by leading agencies were also beaten. Naturally, this is a direct consequence and an obvious success of the ordinance passed by our head of state. This success belongs not only to the Hi-Tech Park, but also the entire country. Belarus is indeed turning into one of the most powerful IT clusters of the whole of Eastern Europe,” Vsevolod Yanchevsky, director of the state institution Hi-Tech Park Administration, said.
According to his estimates, the HTP has everything in place to maintain momentum. The HTP's total output was estimated at BYR3.202bn, up 47% over 2017.
HTP resident companies developed and introduced IT solutions worth BYR297mn on the domestic market, up 59% over 2017. The average salary of an IT specialist last year was BYR4,487.
“The average IT specialist pays 3.2 times more income taxes than the average Belarusian, however the contribution to the Social Security Fund is the same,” the HTP noted.
After the Digital Economy Development Ordinance came into force, the HTP welcomed 267 new companies, more than over the HTP's 12-year history. The companies that had joined the HTP earlier expanded their operations and created 5,000 new jobs in 2018. All in all, the HTP got 13,000 new employees last year. As of late 2018, resident companies of the Hi-Tech Park employed 45,700 people.
Romania’s opposition seeks to ban Huawei
from 5G projects
Romania’s biggest opposition party, the National Liberal Party (PNL) will initiate a public inquiry into Huawei’s contribution to the country’s criti- cal infrastructure and will seek to bar the Chinese company from getting involved in the development of 5G networks, citing mounting security con- cerns, a PNL IT expert told Reuters, on March 6.
Huawei and company officials have been accused of espionage by the authorities in US, Australia, Poland and other countries. The group has repeatedly denied spying or intending to spy for the Chinese state.
Huawei has been operating in Romania since 2003 and also has a development centre in Bucharest.
"We need to protect our strategic interests,
and there’s a lot of suspicion lingering around," said Pavel Popescu, PNL representative on the parliament’s IT committee. "It’s crucially urgent to block any public deals, contracts, tenders with the Chinese company," he added.
The PNL MP pointed to a 2013 memorandum of understanding signed by the then telecoms min- ister with Huawei, offering them an opportunity to participate in the construction of the national information and communications system, traffic monitoring, tracking and e-government projects. His party made an inquiry about the status of this memorandum to which it hasn't received an answer yet.
Estonia, Lithuania and Slovenia lead EBRD Knowledge Economy Index
Estonia, Slovenia and Lithuania lead the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) Knowledge Economy Index, which measures the performance of the 38 economies where the bank invests, alongside the economies of eight frontier innovators, including the US, Germany and Japan, the EBRD said on March 25.