Promotion of ESIS II / Albania / Radio Transcript

Ms Ledia Muco, a researcher at the Albanian Center for Economic Research, was interviewed on 10 July 1999 by the National Albanian Radio Station, Radio Tirana. This page contains the transcript of the broadcast.

Interviewer

Ms Ledia Muco

In fact I'm not sure if the topic of discussion today should be included within the background of economic issues. It is a wider concept that deals with all the sectors of Albanian development. So, we are talking about the Information Society, the concept that we are used to knowing in general, but also the Information Society that includes all subjects, organizations and associations, and governmental structures that share information with each other, being supported obviously by technology developments. But, what does the concept of the Information Society consist of in more detail? What are the up-to-date results in this field? What is the European Survey of Information Society? What does this project provide, which is of importance to the Information Society in Albania? We will be back with you after a short break.

And now, after making a short presentation of the topics of our discussion today, let me introduce first of all today's radio broadcasting guest Ms Ledia Muco, .

First of all I'd like to thank you for coming here to our radio broadcast. Ms Ledia has been our guest many times during our broadcasts to discuss issues in the program in an economic context.

Now, we are going to discuss in detail a concept that is well-known for people in general, the Information Society.

- Without repeating what you said about the Information Society, that it is very important and it comprises all subjects that use information, I would like to stress the fact that a developed Information Society serves both to increase opportunities for sharing information within local structures of different sectors, and to make links and to exchange information with their counterparts outside the country. It also means more development opportunities in the country, more links and access to new technology, new development programs/projects, (for which Albania has many obstacles and needs to be engaged in new development programs) as well as serving the exchange of information with similar organisations in other countries, launching of new projects and businesses to foreign and domestic investors, in order to attract the interest of foreign capital resulting in the increase of foreign capital invested in our country.

So, that is the status of the information society in general. Anyway, it isn't only important as a way to attract capital for developing businesses/projects. It is also of great importance to the exchange of technology and experience, which is very inefficient in our country.

Hoping that we have now made the concept of information society clear, let us discuss something about the factors and elements that would contribute to the development of the information society?

- First of all I would like to stress that infrastructure is the key factor for development of the advanced technology that is the Information Society. You can’t imagine an Information Society without the existence of a telecommunication network, that will bring messages every time, inside or outside the country. If we can say some words regarding telephony in the most developed cities of Albania, and even in the long distance cities, (taking into consideration the use of a telephone line through an operator and not a direct line, however substantial the funds invested in this field), the same can’t be said for rural areas. For more than ten years there have been distorted telephone lines in most of the country, or it could take a long time for somebody to go to the nearest country that has the chance to have a post service, or it could take a long time waiting to have a call with some body in/outside Albania because of busy or damaged lines (especially during the rainy period of autumn). It is also very difficult in general to find rural households with telephone lines. There are only some public figures who have the opportunity to have a telephone line in their homes (especially the leader of communes). Meanwhile, because of the badly damaged infrastructure, it could take a week or two to have a letter/package sent by mail. So, considering not only telephony, but also the post, we can say that the most elementary telecommunication issues are still unsolved.

In these conditions, it is understandable that the process of sharing information is very limited or not of the expected quality of service.

So, one can't pretend to have a modern information technology, underlined by the existence of an e-mail and Internet service, which requires at least two necessary accessories, a computer and a phone line. It is essential to pass to a different level from the rural and the general one, to only a small part of the population that can have access to it. This part is centralized in the main cities of our country and partially in some governmental/non governmental institutions that have financial and other possibilities to support the provision of necessary assessors. There are still many ministries/departments that don’t have access to e-mail, or use of the Internet.

We were trying to gain an idea of the level of information exchange in Albania. All that you mentioned regarding the rural population is true, but I'm afraid it is a bad situation for all citizens. Many telephone lines have been added, but there aren't many people who have access to computers or other (assessors being both governmental or non-governmental structures ???). However, compared with the telecommunication situation during '90s, there have been some positive or incentive steps towards the improvement of information society development in Albania.

- Albania inherited a very weak and inefficient information system that couldn’t cover the most elementary services, including the computerized network that still leaves much to be desired. In Albania, the number of telephone lines per 100 inhabitants in 1998 was only 3.5, while the total number of mobile phones only 4474. So it is understandable that comparing this data with neighboring countries such as Italy and Greece, as well as other former-socialist countries, shows that Albania ranks among the most undeveloped countries in this field.

Meanwhile, government and respective ministries have made some efforts in designing new telecommunication laws and policy (the last one has been approved only two weeks ago) in order to set the main objectives and direction of further telecommunications development.

If I could say something more in this regard, I should emphasize that, by Law, the Ministry of Economy and Privatization is the authority responsible for designing the telecommunication policy. This policy clearly presents the mid-term and long-term objectives for telecommunications development and privatization, liberalization of telecomm services, telecommunication policy in the rural zones, private networks, tariffs, numeration, legislation, etc.

Regarding the mid-term objectives, it is foreseeable to increase the number of telephone lines up to 450000-5000000 during the next three years (2000-2003), with a penetration rate of 15%. It is also aimed to extend the access to telecommunication services by rural households. For this reason, there has been liberalization of rural telephony, followed by the signing of an agreement between Albtelecom and an American company "New World Telecom", establishing a joint venture that aims to extend telephone lines even in rural zones.

Regarding the legislation, there is a Law for Telecommunications and a Law for the Telecommunication Regulatory Entity (TRE) that regulate telecommunication services.

In fact this new joint venture company will be well extended all over the country, not only in the rural zones, with a covering of 95% of Albanian territory with new telephone lines.

What I would like to stress, is that currently the public operators in Albania are Albtelecom and Albanian Mobile Communication. They are anonymous associations that will be privatized soon, and, according to governmental predictions, it is going to be privatized firstly the AMC, (within this year) and later Albtelecom Company.

Do you think that Albanians could have the results of telecommunication policy very soon, which in fact is a project of Ministry of Public Economy and Privatization?

- In fact, the success of this policy depends on many factors, both objective and subjective. Regarding objective factors, I would say that the implementation of telecommunications policy would be strongly linked to the legal framework, which creates the necessary environment for its implementation. So, the telecommunication legal framework is established by the Law for Telecommunications and the Law for Telecommunication Regulatory Entity (TRE), which are the only two legal instruments that regulate telecommunication services. The last one, TRE operates as an independent regulatory entity. Nevertheless, as a result of the new telecommunication policy, it is certain that this legislation should require some new amendments and regulations.

And during this time, do you think that there should be many changes or improvements /amendments made to the legal framework, in order to make it more appropriate to the telecommunication policy?

- Surely, we are used to having many laws and regulations that regulate a certain relationship or action, while the telecommunications sector has only two. However, if it is a result of legal studies of judiciaries that these two laws cover the telecommunication sector as a whole, then it doesn't create any problem for the existing legal framework. But, if many problems and impropriety are noticed within many sectors of telecommunications, such as in obtaining licenses, creating new frequencies, deciding about the numeration, or other derivative consequences, it would be necessary to review the legal framework in this field, in order for it to be more appropriate to the telecommunication policy. In fact, one of the issues of telecommunication policy is the reviewing of the legal framework.

In the context of the information society, there exists a project, the European Survey of Information Society. Can you say something in detail about this project?

- Yes. It is a project that aims to enhance the development and effective functioning of information society in EU, CEEC, and Mediterranean countries.

This project even includes Albania, involving a local counterpart, the Albanian Center for Economic Research. The project called European Survey of Information Society has been launched by Information Society Program Office (ISPO) of the European Commission in Brussels at the beginning of 1997.

Its objective is to build an inventory of projects and activities of the European Information Society as well as to assemble European data concerning promotional activities undertaken by public authorities and private actors, by they European, national, regional or local.

The inventory holds information on a broad range of commercial and publicly funded Information Society application projects in the European Union, Central and Eastern European Countries and in Mediterranean Countries. It provides a tool for knowledge, communication, partnership and the promotion of examples of best practice, as well as to monitor and analyse the new developments in telecommunication and Information Society field. Furthermore, it serves as a navigation tool for all key actors and helps in the promotion of the Information Society.

The survey results and studies made through this project are openly available to all parties with a strong interest in the development and progress of Information Society and, can be accessed through e-mail and the Internet, as well as through symposiums, conferences, etc.

- ACER is the local partner in this project, and it is trying to create the necessary environment for the extension and development of the information society in Albania. It is understandable that because of the features of the information society in Albania (that we tried to clarify before), we can't be very optimistic regarding the number of projects that are going to be included in the ESIS project. However, in the context of this project, ACER has undertaken a micro-survey for Albania, being aware of the fact that the ESIS project consists of a large European survey. This micro-survey includes different subjects independent of their governmental or non-governmental status, such as business associations, chambers of commerce and industry, state institutions of different types (focused on economy, social science, culture, etc.), in order to give all of them more possibilities to promote their projects/activities through the information society.

From the 50 subjects surveyed up to now, only 17 of them use e-mail, which is the minimal condition for developing information society.

- Most of them are NGOs and only a few of them are from governmental structures. I should also say that even the penetration of Internet into governmental institutions is very low.

- No, this is because the Internet service itself is very new. It was legalized only 6-7 months ago by TRE, while up to now there are 10 firms that provide Internet service. Among them, there are some organizations such as the SOROS foundation, UNDP that provide this services only to their clients, or NGOs, and free of charge. The rest have set individual prices for their services.

It was noticed during the survey that all subjects were trying to install Internet/e-mail, but unfortunately we should accept that the penetration rate of e-mail and Internet service is at a minimal level.

Well now we are going to have a short musical break, and will be back with you, to discuss about the conclusions and what should people benefit from a developed information society.

Back to our studio in the second or the last part of our discussion on "Economy on Focus". I would like to introduce again our guest of today's programme, who has been talking with us for about 25 minutes, Ms. Ledia Muco, ACER Researcher.

- The information society is very important not only for Albanian society but in general because it offers:

In general, this project will give also the opportunity to promote several activities of Information Society and to enhance the improvement of telecommunication services and the existing infrastructure in Albania. It also will help in the institutionalization of the Information Society in Albania and also its further development. This development is important both for people/structures who are directly involved in, and the others that are indirectly involved in Information Society. As it might be known, the increase of opportunities for sharing information creates new links between certain organizations in the country or outside, provides new unknown development possibilities, increase possibilities to exchange the learning by doing experience, as well as provides new ways of managing and running state or private governmental/non-governmental structures. A necessary information in the right moment would avoid negative social phenomena as well as would suggest the right ways for fighting it.

All what we said deal with the big market of sharing information, which in Albania is very conditioned by the access in modern technology and Internet service.

Well, I would like to thank you for your cooperation with us and your kindly discussion on issues of Information Society. Now, we will finish our broadcasting on the economic issues in the radio broadcasting serial "Economy in Focus". Thank you very much for coming, and hoping to have you again as our guest in radio broadcasting.

Contact: Zef Preci, Ledia Muco
Albanian Center for Economic Research (ACER)
zpreci@adanet.com.al