Update November 2000: Latvia

During the third quarter of this year there have been no essential changes concerning key person contacts and organisations regarding the Information Society field in Latvia.

The number of new organisations and people were included in the ESIS Knowledge base during the last three months together with new promotional activities and IS projects.

Concept of ID cards was accepted this summer in Latvia. The main goal of the implementation of the Concept is to introduce national identification card – the document that identifies Latvia’s private persons, that corresponds to principles of the European Union which are accepted internationally. The Concept was elaborated by Citizenship and Migration Issues Board, director Mr. Martins Bicevskis.

Together with the new IS project "Development of agriculture administration and control system in compliance with the EU requirements" the Country Support Service of the Ministry of Agriculture was included in the database (director Uldis Apels).

On the subject institution of Steering Committee for the United Information System Project for Municipalities - the contact information about Administration of Local Self-government Affairs and its director Mr. Ivars Kalnins was included.

Information for other projects earlier included in the ESIS Knowledge base was updated without any changes in key person contacts and organisations.

In most cases people involved in IS activities in Latvia represent organisations traditionally active in this field. During last three months a number of IS promotion activities took place where organisations and people who took part were already included in the database together with previous actions. Among them: Department of Informatics of the Ministry of Transport (director Andris Virtmanis) with the updated version 2000 of National program "Informatics"; Latvian Business school (conference co-ordinator Mrs. Ira Rezais) with the 2-nd Baltic Sea Region Communications Forum; the State Enterprise Register (Chief notary public Mr. Maris Gulbis) in connection with and accepted by the Cabinet of Ministers of Concept on legal status of electronic documents.

Among private business activities concerning key person contacts and organisations we can notice the foundation of the stock company DELFI. DELFI was instituted on the basis of ISP company Parks LVNet, which now is registered as DELFI INTERNET. The main goal of DELFI will be to expand the Internet portal www.delfi.lv and to offer marketing, E-commerce and other Internet services for business structures. At the same time DELFI INTERNET will offer the Internet connection services, and will enforce new Internet connection technologies and solutions.