Saturday, March 1, 2008

IT Cooperation Between Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan


Yerlan Durmagambetov, the deputy chairman of the Agency for Information and Communications of Kazakhstan gave an interview to S. Babayeva, Azerbaijan's Trend Capital news agency journalist.

Question: What would you recommend Azerbaijan for the establishment of efficient model of Electronic Government?


Answer: The development of the information and communication technologies has become an important factor in the world community’s life. Their wider applications have improved the public life and lead to the revolutionary progress in the economic, social, culture and other spheres. One of the major tasks set for Kazakhstan is the establishment of information society. This task is being successfully fulfilled in Kazakhstan, thanks to the implementation of a program on development of Electronic Government allocated for the period till 2010. At present, measures to form an infrastructure of Electronic Governments have been realized in Kazakhstan.

The action plan on formation of infrastructure of the Electronic Government was developed in consideration with the experience of countries which have considerable achievements in this sphere – Korea, Singapore, India, Estonia, the United States, Italy and Germany.

The application of Electronic Government in Azerbaijan was carried out in four stages:

- Information – publication and dissemination of information (2005-2006);

- Interactive – interactive services rendered through straight and reverse interaction between the state bodies and citizens (2006-2007);

- Transaction – transactional interaction through implementing financial operations through the government portal (2007 – 2008);

- Formation of information society, with the domination of electronic services over papers, which will cover the full life-cycle of the mankind (2010 and after).

At present, actions are taken to realize a program on decreasing the information inequality in Kazakhstan in 2007–2009. The key task of the program is to carry out full scale actions for the computer literacy of the population and training of qualified teachers and IT specialists. Incredible work is being done in Kazakhstan currency with respect to make computers and Internet more accessible. Thus, tariffs for access to the international network are decreased and measures to develop the Kazakh segment of the world network are taken. Within the framework of formation of the Electronic Government, twelve IТ-projects were implemented- with seven already set for implementations.

An important aspect in formation of the Electronic Government is the program management structure. The experience of Denmark, Canada and Korea shows that this cooperation between the administrations in charge of distributing funds, contributes in the development of principles, enabling to cover a range of aspects regarding the Electronic Government. We advise Azerbaijan to study the experience of South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore for successful building of the Electronic Government.

Question: What major projects could Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan carry out jointly in the near future?

Answer: At the moment, the project on the construction of the Subsea Fiber Optic cable via the Caspian Sea from Siyazan to Aktau is at the initial phase. It is also possible to carry out projects on exchange of experience in the implementation of the Electronic Government projects

Question: How will the countries be benefited from the realization of project on construction of Caspian segment of the Trans-Asia-Europe (TAE) fiber-optic cable?


Answer: The Communications Administrations have determined managers under this project. KAzTransKom, one of the big operators of city and international communications acts from the part of Kazakhstan. At present, the procedures for the selection of a consultant on development of feasibility study of the project are underway.

Every party has its interest in the implementation of the project. Kazakhstan is particularly interested in designing alternative line to the European countries and increasing its transit potential.

Source: Capital.TrendAz.com