Key organisations and related with them key persons responsible for the processing and management of issues with respect to the Information Society in Latvia can be divided in three basic groups.

Over the lifetime of ESIS II Project (since March 1999) several changes of government took place in Latvia. Nevertheless the positive changes towards the shaping of Information Society in Latvia were observed at the same time. In July 1999 the Prime Minister Andris Skele provided the Declaration of the Work of the Cabinet of Ministers with a range of essential actions in the chapters "Communications" and "Informatics". The role of government in the IS issues increased. The next change of government took place after one year – in May 2000. The present government with Prime Minister Andris Berzins follows the previous politic in IS issues. In the Declaration on the Intended Activities of the Cabinet of Ministers we can find the following actions:

[Communications]

• ratify new and consumer-friendly regulations for the use of telecommunications services;
• achieve that the period of monopoly status of the Lattelekom is cut shorter and runs until the year 2003, and ensure that real competition emerges in the sector of telecommunications;
• immediately liberalise wireless communications market by setting clear criterias for issuing licenses and starting issuing licenses for new operators;
• by the year 2003 ensure access to free of charge emergency aid telephone services for every resident;
• ensure the quality detection of public television and radio programs in the whole country.

[Information technology]

• the priorities for state investments in information technology for the years 2000 - 2001 are education, establishment of an integrated information system of state importance and its components, as well as elaboration of normative acts in the field of information technology;
• elaborate by the year 2001 and introduce within the period of two years an integrated transport information system for co-ordination and optimisation of all kinds of traffic movements and loading processing;
• promote the development of the Internet in Latvia, ensure fair competition among the Internet service providers.

On the background of time after time government changes the main government body responsible for IS development in Latvia - Ministry of Transport works stable without serious discontinuities. The leadership of the Ministry has been the same during the last three governments. The Minister of transport Anatolijs Gorbunovs manages the Ministry since 1998. Two departments of the Ministry are directly involved in IS activities. There are:

The main goal of the Department of Communications is to provide an integrated operation of communication infrastructure. IS policy in Latvia is developed and realised by the Department of Informatics. This department organises creation of the information infrastructure and implementation of the National Programme "Informatics". The Minister of Transport administers the National Program "Informatics" in Latvia. For co-ordination of this complex Program a widely represented Co-ordination Board for the National Program "Informatics" and the Boards of Informatics in all Ministries and many local governments were formed. The director of the Department of Informatics Dr. Andris Virtmanis takes part in a number of IS promotional activities in Latvia, co-ordinates a state financed IS projects realisation, is a chairman of Strategic Task Group of the Co-ordination Board for the National Program "Informatics".

Supervisory boards for 3 long-term complex informatics investment projects of state significance were formed:

• for the National Integrated Library Information Network project,
• for the Education Informatisation System project;
• for the State Revenue Service Information System project.

The main goal of the State Information Network Agency (VITA) is to realise state policy in the development of an integrated state level information and communication system, to maintain this system under legislation and terms of the Cabinet of Ministers. Agency provides telecommunication services to Latvia State authorities and is responsible for a data network for State organisations. The Concept for the operation and further development of the VITA was accepted by the Cabinet of Ministers in August 1999.To improve a work of the VITA the new general director was appointed by the Cabinet in September 1999. The position of the general director in VITA now occupies previous director of the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics of Latvian University Dr. Rihards Balodis. After this appointment further changes of leading officials inside VITA took place.

In the ESIS Knowledge base it is possible to find about 20 ministries and other governmental organisations involved in IS activities in Latvia. Some of them are:

• Latvian Privatization Agency
• Ministry of Agriculture
• Ministry of Culture
• Ministry of Economy
• Saeima (Parliament)
• Naturalisation Office of the Republic of Latvia
• Union of Local Self-Governments of Latvia
• State enterprise register

This group includes academic organisations and their departments with a significant role in the education, R&D, IS Projects and other IS related activities. This is a comparatively persistent sector of a community and it is not especially affected by political changes.

A number of research studies concerning IS at the University of Latvia have been funded by the Latvian Council of Sciences and grants from EU. The main ones are:

• The complexity of Probabilistic Algorithms;
• The Algorithmic Theory of Discovery and its applications;
• The development of Information Systems for Education in Latvia;
• Business modelling language GRAPES-BM and its usage.

Totally 48 R&D projects in computer science where granted in the 1999 by the Latvian Council of Science for approximately 330,000 EUR.

There are near to 140 researchers, engineers and software developers on the staff of the Mathematics and Informatics Institute (MII) of the University of Latvia.

The Riga Information Technology Institute (RITI), a non-profit organisation of the DATI Group, is the only private science institute in Latvia. Its main research areas are:

• development of programming tools;
• independent testing of software products;
• development of IT standards and terminology.

Experts from RITI have gained international project experience in the development of high quality software engines (complicated internal parts of software) as well as in independent software testing at ISO 9000 level and customer/personnel training/education.

In the last years we can register an increasing role of professional non-government organisations in the IS issues. Mostly there are professional associations that only partly can be related to R&D organisations. The most respected non-government professional associations promoting IS are Latvian Information Technology and Telecommunication Association (LITTA), Telecommunications Association of Latvia (LTA), Latvian Association for Computer Technology (LDTA), Latvian Electrotechnical and Electronics Industries Association (LETERA), Latvian Internet Association (LIA). Among other research institutions taking part in IS promotion actions and in realisation of IS projects we can find:

There are telecommunications operators, ISP and data transmission service providers, radio, TV and cable TV operators as well as hardware and software manufacturers among institutions of the this group.

During the last years we obtained a beginning of mergers and acquisitions in IT&T field in Latvia.

Other significant changes of this kind took place in the year 2000:

• the second biggest Latvian mobile telecommunications operator Baltcom GSM was sold to Swedish Tele2 AB, a subsidiary of Netcom AB. Reportedly, the deal amounted to USD 277 millions;
• the major Latvian computer assemblers Fortech (having also software development department) , and VAR, were acquired by Estonian Microlink;
• the second biggest software developer, SWH-Technology, was acquired by USA-based Exigen Group;
• a leading charge cards operator BankServiss was acquired by Norway’s Euro Processing International AS;
• CHS Riga, a leading computer and software wholesaler, was acquired by Finnish GNT Finland.

The ESIS Knowledge base contains all details about Latvia’s fixed and mobile telecommunications operators, data transmission service providers, TV and cable TV operators as well as hardware and software manufacturers. Among them are:

• Lattelekom – historical fixed telecommunications operator;
• Latvia Mobile Telephone (LMT) and BaltCom GSM – mobile operators;
• Telia Latvia – ISP and data communication operator;
• DT Media Group, Computer 2000 Latvia Ltd – IT companies
• stock company DATI - software developer