Russia plans to increase spending on information technology

Moscow, 10 September: Russia spends nearly 0.3 per cent of the federal budget on providing the federal authorities with modern information technologies, the Russian Communications and Information Technology Ministry told an ITAR-TASS news agency correspondent today on the eve of the government's session that will discuss the issue on Thursday [11 September]. Communication and Information Technology Ministry experts say that Russia "is formally second to Malaysia and Brazil - to the countries which are similar to our country in terms of welfare". To compare, Malaysia spends 0.64 per cent of the federal budget on informatization and Brazil spends 0.55 per cent. Russia has spent a total of R21.6bn on informatization projects at 41 agencies over the past three years, including R16.4bn from the federal budget. Russian Communications and Information Technology Minister Leonid Reyman said today that his ministry would submit a draft on upgrading the Elektronnaya Rossiya [Electronic Russia] federal programme to the government in the near future. He said "there is no full satisfaction with the results of the first year of the work on the federal programme", though the programme itself and the state support for it had considerably accelerated the introduction of information technologies.

ITAR-TASS news agency