Update November 2000: FYR Macedonia

One hundred thousand connections for cellular phones. National Statistical Offices from Balkan on Census'2001, 27-29 July 2000, Ohrid, Macedonia. Cisco Systems, Inc. to provide US$2.6 million's worth of state-of-the-art Internet protocol (IP) equipment to Makedonski Telekomunikacii. Privatisation of Macedonian Telecommunications is well underway. Ministry of education is the new national Information Society co-ordinator.

1. Society wide promotional and awareness context

In the last three months several improvements have been announced in Macedonian Telecommunications. The national Statistical Offices from Balkan countries got together on a conference concerning mutual co-operation and the forthcoming censuses in year 2001. After the restructure of the Government, the Ministry of Education is responsible for the co-ordination of the Information Society policies. These groups of events will have a strong impact on the further implementation of Information Society in the Republic of Macedonia.

President of the Government of the Republic of Macedonia, Ljubcho Georgievski, at the "Macedonian Telecommunications" set to work the new capacities in the centre of mobile telephony with which 100,000 connections are available for the subscribers.

The Prime Minister said: "We have gathered here today to announce that the capacity of 70,000 subscribers, reported last year, is already achieved and with the new central a possibility for new 100,000 subscribers is offered to Macedonia. We also want succeed in achieving a capacity for next year of 170,000 subscribers".

The director of the "Macedonian Telecommunications" Daniel Doncev said that, following the world trends in the development of telecommunications, a bigger importance is given to mobile telephony. Expressing the satisfaction from the previous work of the "Macedonian Telecommunications", Doncev stressed that the new cycle of intensive development in the mobile telephony will start (see the corresponding entry in the ESIS-II database - One hundred thousand connections for cellular phones).

An international conference on the forthcoming censuses in Balkan countries in year 2001 was held on 27-29 July in Ohrid, Macedonia. Conclusions and recommendations and tasks on intensification of co-operation between the national statistical offices were agreed. The State Statistical Office of the Republic of Macedonia presented a proposal for a project aimed toward providing comparable and up-to-date information from the censuses and the vital statistics from the countries from the south-east region of Europe. This information would be easily accessed by all the participants in the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, thus supporting the democratisation processes and the economic co-operation in the Region (see the corresponding entry in the ESIS-II database - National Statistical Offices from the Balkans on Census'2001).

On the 26^th July 2000, Cisco Systems, Inc. announced that it agreed to provide US$2.6 million's worth of state-of-the-art Internet protocol (IP) equipment to Makedonski Telekomunikacii, Macedonian's state telecommunications company, enabling the company to deploy a highly reliable and scalable network that offers a breadth of IP services to its customers. It will make Makedonski Telekomunikacii the first telecommunications operator in South Eastern Europe to adopt the IP backbone solution widely used by its new-world counterparts. The company has also signed up to provide training under the acclaimed Cisco Networking Academies Programme (see the corresponding entry in the ESIS-II database - Cisco Systems, Inc. about Macedonian Telecommunications).

Six companies, the potential strategic investors in the Macedonian Telecommunications, have visited the Makedonski Telekomunikacii. After the presentation of the Telecom to these companies, it’s expected that they offer to buy the dominant share of 51%. The companies have expressed their satisfaction and have stressed that the privatisation process is carried out transparently and without problems (see the corresponding entry in the ESIS-II database - Privatisation of Macedonian Telecommunications).

The new Ministry of Education has incorporated also the responsibilities of the former Ministry of Science including its responsibility for co-ordination of the efforts towards Information Society (see the corresponding entry in the ESIS-II database - Ministry of Education is the new national Information Society co-ordinator).