The first Korean-Serbian Forum: E-government and Smart Cities for the Future
Within the first Korean-Serbian Forum on E-Government and Smart Cities, organized today by the Korean Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA), the Embassy of the Republic of Korea and NALED, it was concluded that the key to Serbia's economic success would be digitalization, based on exchange of data rather than documents, being focused on the needs of citizens rather than institutions. The key is to learn from other countries' experiences while understanding that e-government is like a moving target - a process that can never be completely finalized.
- We are glad to have the opportunity to talk about the best solutions with the representatives of most successful companies from Korea, the country that is ranked the third in the United Nations' list by the development of e-government and a leader by citizens' engagement in the use of e-services. Korea is certainly a whole generation ahead of us in this segment. While Serbia is developing e-government 2.0, oriented towards the citizens and two-way online communication, Korea has largely advanced in developing e-government 3.0, adapted to every individual party, communication which enable proactive role of citizens in administrative affairs through portals such as ePeople, being dominantly based on the use of mobile phones – said Željko Tomić, the President of NALED-s E-Government Alliance and General Manager of OSA računarski inženjering.
Minister Counselor and Charge d'Affairs in the Embassy of the Republic of Korea, Hynsoo Yun, reminded that the Korean investments to Serbia have been doubled this year, being mostly focused on the production. As an example he stated the factory of enameled copper wires Essex Europe in Zrenjanin, which will start operating in November.
- Last year, Korea celebrated a golden jubilee of e-government application, it has more than 18,000 information systems and it is one of the first countries in the world that initiated the development of smart cities, which find solutions for improving the energy efficiency, transport and utilities by using Internet of Things technologies. We are transferring our knowledge and experience in more than 70 countries around the world and the key areas of further cooperation between Serbia and Korea will be the e-government and smart city topics - added Yun.
Th Forum participants were the leading innovators in the field of ICT and Smart City technologies such as Korea Telecom, Unidocs, Docson, Seculayer, Good Consulting Company, LG U+ and Grib. They presented the best practices to business and expert community, state institutions, local governments and international organizations in Serbia, and stressed that the key for e-government development is to enjoy support from the state.
The Korean-Serbian Forum also served as the occasion to learn more on how to avoid the risks brought by fast digitalization, primarily the creation of a digital gap between the younger and older, as well as urban and rural population. As a best practice example the experts indicated the Korean "Internet villages" project, which led to an increase in the use of computers from 37% to 72% in less than 10 years, along with the increase of Internet use from 9% to 66%, which provided the local population with a chance to market their products through e-commerce and create opportunities for their economic empowerment.
Strategy of e-government development in Serbia by May 2019
Director of Office for IT and E-Government in the Government of Serbia, Mihailo Jovanović announced that the Government's first strategic document on e-government development will be adopted by May 2019. He reminded that over the previous year, the adoption of the laws on e-business, e-government and personal data protection have significantly improved the regulations for the e-government development. It is expected that additional 29 by-laws that will enable law implementation in practice will be adopted by the end of the year.