MINSK, 28 March (BelTA) – In 2017 Belarus may issue 5,000 digital visas to foreigners according to the government program on developing the digital economy and the information society in 2016-2020, BelTA has learned.
The development of the computer system to issue digital visas is part of the government program. The system is supposed to be developed in 2016-2017. The document reads that the number of digital visas issued by Belarus to foreign citizens will rise by 2,000 every year and will reach 11,000 in 2020.
Plans have been made to create a full-scale system for using digitally signed prescriptions in Belarus. All doctors in state-run healthcare institutions should be able to issue such prescriptions in 2020.
The share of administrative procedures carried out digitally with regard to legal persons is expected to reach 75% by the end of the five-year term. Digital school systems will be deployed in 80% of the education institutions across the country. As many as 82% of Belarusian households are supposed to have Internet access in 2020.
As part of the government program plans have been made to create a service delivery platform in the country and to open a public data website as part of the national digital services portal. A national system for paperless trade will be created. A national segment of the integrated computer system of the Eurasian Economic Union will be created as well. The construction of the universal mobile communication system based on LTE (4G) will continue as well as the creation of a national platform based on cloud computing.
Representatives of the Belarusian Information Technologies and Communications Ministry told BelTA that digital government services and administrative procedures should make them more accessible. Their conversion to digital form should stimulate the domestic demand for quality IT services in the real sector of the economy, the sphere of services, the social services, and the state administration sphere. Efforts will be focused on forming the digital economy, developing the information society, and improving the digital government.
Progress in implementing the government program will be measured by Belarus' ranking in the UN E-Government Readiness Index and the ranking in the ICT Development Index of the International Telecommunication Union.
