Update April 2000: FYR Macedonia

1. Society wide promotional and awareness context

VAT implementation with impact on ICT products and services: main focus of the public attention, in the previous period was on the preparation for implementation of VAT into State taxation system. Differentiation of taxes naturally touches all the different service categories and therefore the services on the public networks have been brought into focus of interest, too. Although, the services on the global network are still the emergent subject. Interested parties are becoming aware of the complexity of implementation of the tax systems for them.

Since the proposed VAT system does not offer special provisioned tax rates for the ICT technologies and services, there are scepticism that initially will have unfavourable impact on the spreading of the Information Society technologies and services. This proposal is interpreted in prices increasing for the same economic power of the citizens.

To assist in better understanding the VAT system - the motivations, long-term benefits and responsibilities, the Government sponsored and published a Manual on Implementation of VAT System. The publication is being distributed free of charge to all interested legally registered parties.

2. Information Society promotion actions

Most of the direct IS-related promotions are coming from academic and professional communities. Relevant action is related with the promotion of the open and distance education and the recently established national bodies for co-ordination of implementation of the related study centres.

• Scholars and researchers from the computer science department of the Faculty of Sciences and Mathematics and from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, have promoted and started the TEMPUS Joint European Project Establishment of a National Contact Point for Open and Distance Learning in Macedonia.

• This project kick-off was followed by a promotion, in an info-day session, that has gathered representatives from all interested parties in Macedonia. Representatives from project co-ordination unit of the European Training Foundation, Turin, and from other distance education study centres in the region attended the meeting also. Important to mention, were the promotions of the emerging ICT core technologies announced by the leading technology vendors.

• The traditional IBM Days in Macedonia, gathered the representatives of the IT community to present them with the potentials and the business perspective of the leading provider of ICT technology and services. Again, the commitments to network-centric technologies and e-commerce were reinforced

• CISCO Systems organised demo-presentation and one-day workshop on CISCO solutions for transporting voice over traditional LAN and WAN network infrastructures. The presentation was aimed toward preparing the business partners and customers for adopting these converging technologies for the services on the global network.