Azerbaijan, Baku, Jan. 22 / Trend, H.Valiyev /
The Azerbaijani Ministry of Communications and Information Technologies and the Azerbaijani National Academy of Sciences (ANAS) have created a working group to prepare an action plan in connection with the announcement of 2013 as the Year of information communication technologies (ICT) in Azerbaijan, the ministry told Trend on Tuesday.
A meeting of representatives of these structures was recently held which identified promising areas in ICT for the year.
According to the ministry, the launch of the first Azerbaijani telecommunications satellite Azerspace/Africasat-1 into orbit and broadband Internet development project in Azerbaijan, implemented with the financial support of the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan will be amongst the major achievements of 2013.
As stated in the ministry, 103 million manat was allocated for the project.
Intensive work on the project's development and implementation has been maintained during the past three months. Successful implementation of the project helps to increase internet penetration level to 85 percent, which will match the indicators of developed countries.
2013 will also be marked by the transition to digital broadcasting, which is also an extremely important large-scale project.
One of the important tasks of the Communications and Information Technologies Ministry this year is the further development of e-services and facilitation of public access to them.
The decree declaring 2013 as the Year of ICT in Azerbaijan was signed by the President of Azerbaijan on January 16.
In this regard, the Ministry in conjunction with ANAS was instructed to prepare and submit action plan in this field to the head of state within one month.