The Ministry of Information Society and Administration proposes a fresh concept of so called "Open E-Services" envisaging each interested company, that is to meet certain technical and legal conditions and standards, to be allowed to design IT solutions offering electronic services while using data of institutions after fulfilling strictly defined rules and standards.

This was stated by Minister of Information Society and Administration, Ivo Ivanovski at a conference on topic "Information Society - the Future of Macedonia" held Thursday in Skopje to mark country's 20th independence anniversary.

Underlying his belief that "Open E-Services" was the future for development of open society, Ivanovski said that private companies with the new service would make profits "provided they develop an attractive service to be used by citizens and the business community."

"There will be great benefits for all parties involved. Citizens will have more choices, local authority will gain freedom for innovations in providing already existing and new services, administration will offer services suitable for the citizens and is to improve its work by enhancing its efficiency and developing competitiveness, while central authority will promptly digitize all public services," Ivanovski said.

The minister noted that Macedonia's information society had made a huge breakthrough recently.

He stressed that the Government of Macedonia primarily focused on investing in building information society and reforming the public administration.

Igor Bimbiloski of Macedonian Telecom and chairman of the MASIT Steering Board said Macedonia's progress in information and communications technologies was indisputable and evident.

"In the past five years in the ICT sector, there is a growth rate of revenues of over 9% annually and of added value of the number of employees of almost 5%. Thus, ICT industry has a huge impact over the development of secondary industries and greatly contributes to the development of overall economy," Bimbiloski stated.