Along with the other developments, ESIS-II has been focused on the promotional context, which was among the richest in activities, as those activities are expected to precede and/or closely follow the actual Information Society projects.

Most of the promotional activities can be classified into one of these several directions:

• promotion of ICT services, their benefits to citizens and businesses, and continually competitive pricing strategies;
• rising awareness for the need of steady deregulation of the telecommunication sector;
• issuing and promotion of regulatory measures, related to services on global network, broadcasting, protection of industrial property rights;
• promotion of the political relevance of Information Society initiatives - measuring the potential of the country for absorbing the new technologies and building content-rich services on-top of them;
• promotion of the networks of local authorities and their potential in regional development;
• promotion of the core IS technologies - open and distance learning and tematic networks;
• promotion of the potential of ICT services for future alternative network service providers;
• supporting the "equal access for all principle", for telecommunication services, among the less benefited groups and underdeveloped communities;
• technological promotions of new solutions by the leading telecommunication vendors;
• promotion of ESIS-II as a decision tool for ICT providers and policy makers (see chapter ESIS-II communication activities).

As the strongest trend of the IS development in Macedonia is that of "enabling and offering of telecommunication services", a considerable part of the promotional activities has been focused within the telecommunication sector. Following the same trend, the focus of promotion has also been around the governmental bodies in charge of the corresponding regulative framework (please refer to www.mt.com.mk for more details).

Completed the major privatisation of the publicly owned national operator, Makedonski Telekomuniakcii AD (MT), and due to an extremely high momentum of emergence of mobile communication services and Internet availability and access, MT became the most active player on the IS arena. This can be seen in the ESIS-II database entries on Promotional Activities.

Already expressed commitments for further investments by the new MT owner, Hungarian MATAV, as well as the expectation of the second license for mobile service provider, promise a very live future promotional activity in this sector.

The Macedonian Broadcasting Council (www.srd.org.mk) has shown extremely high IS awareness, being very active in both adopting and modernising the broadcasting regulation, as well as in promoting the globalisation of services and emerging digital broadcasting technologies. They have co-organised and successfully conducted the International Workshop "Implementation of New Technologies and Programming Broadcasting Services in the Digital Era", and PHARE GESAC/AIDAA Seminar on Intelectual Property Legislation and Fight Against Infringement: "Against the Piracy in the Macedonian Ether".

The Council was also very active in public discussion about several very important aspects of the deregulation of the telecom sector.

After more than a year of continued very high momentum of the activities for promotion of the open and distance education and recently the establishment of national bodies for co-ordination of the implementation of the study centres, a team of scholars and researchers- mostly from computer science departments of the Faculty of Sciences and Mathematics (www.ii.pmf.ukim.edu.mk) and Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (www.etf.ukim.edu.mk) has promoted and started TEMPUS Joint European Project - Establishment of a National Contact Point for Open and Distance Learning in Macedonia.

The project kick-off was followed by a promotion activity in the form of info-day, which gathered representatives from all interested parties in Macedonia, as well as representatives from the project co-ordination unit in European Training Foundation, Turin and other distance education study centres in the region (see the corresponding entry in the ESIS-II database - Info-Day "On the Possibilities for Implementation of Open Distance Education in Macedonia").

An important emerging sector where we have witnessed sustained promotional activities, is that of networks of local authorities. Promoting the thematic networking among them, employing ICT services for that purpose is facilitating further municipality development. An example of such a project is SEEMUNIS - South - East Europe Municipality Infrastructure, which has a cross-border regional dimension.

We would also mention the very focussed UNDP project, where modern ICT technologies are being promoted by the establishment of Information Technology Centres with permanently available Internet connectivity, in several municipalities quite different in their economic development (see the corresponding entry in the ESIS-II database - UNDP supports municipality development through the establishment of Information Technology Centres)

Throughout last year, in several occasions the IS development received clear messages of support from the highest political instances in Macedonia.

The Macedonian president, Mr. Boris Trajkovski, reinforced the urgent need for completing the work on National Strategy for Information Society. Addressing the audience on the opening of the Second CEENet Workshop in Ohrid, he expressed his own commitments to assist in the establishment of the National Committee for IS. Mr. Trajkovski stressed that IS development is one of the key initiatives through which Macedonia has to prove the strong commitment for integration within European and North-Atlantic structures (see the corresponding entry in the ESIS-II database - Macedonian president, Mr. Boris Trajkovski on the importance of National IS Strategy).

The first sound move to follow the mentioned commitments was the initiative "e-Macedonia for All" under a direct sponsorship of the Macedonian President. The major objective of the initiative is to "speed up the activities of transition of the country to Information Society and Networked Economy". The core of the initiative is the Presidental Committee e-Macedonia for All, who gathers competent experts on executive positions from the research, telecom operator, state administration, and banking sector. Securing permanently high priority of the activities the Committee will be undertaking (see the corresponding entry in the ESIS-II database - The Initiative "e-Macedonia for All" established Presidental Committee on IS).

The Macedonian delegation headed by the President, Mr. Boris Trajkovski, took part in the work of the conference "Digital Economy in South - East Europe - Obstacles and Opportunities ", on Oct.24.2000, in Wilton Park, England. The delegation presented a speech "Overcoming Obstacles for Expending Access to On - Line Services in Macedonia", where clear commitments have been expressed about speeding-up the Digital Agenda for transition to Networked Economy in Macedonia.