ESIS extension / Lithuania / www Indicators / Update Report 5

About 70% of Lithuanian companies used Internet for their activities (Newspaper Verslo zinios information). The Law on Electronic Signature, the background regulation for e-business, was approved by the Lithuanian Government and passed to Seimas (Lithuania Parliament). According to the estimation of specialists from the Department of Information and Informatics, another infrastructure for certification, amendments to legal acts and needed regulations will be ready in the middle of the year 2001. Despite the situation, e-commerce is starting. In the middle of 2000 more 20 e-shopping sites started operating in Lithuania. The leaders are Delfi and 5 kontinentai companies. A joint project of Delfi and North Europe Basketball League (NEBL) started in May. The virtual store www.nebl.com/store/ is oriented more to Western Europe, USA and Canada. Users of 70 countries can order here attributes of NEBL. For on-line payments "Visa","Master/Eurocard" are available. DHL is used for fast delivering of the ordered attributes.

5 kontinentai company had signed agreement with Vilniaus Bankas (VB), (www.vb.lt), for the use of "VB Visa", "VB Visa Electron", "VB Eurocard/Mastercard" in on-line payments at the site http://www.commerce.lt. It was the first time that Internet payments became available for Lithuanian citizens.

All Lithuanian banks are planning to start Internet banking services in the middle of 2000. Bank Snoras introduced 5 new on-line banking services. The largest bank Vilniaus Bankas is planing to introduce a European model of banking services on Internet in July.

Internet is going into the agriculture sector. More than 180 Lithuania agriculture companies are presented at the site baltic.food-fair.com. Other example could be the catalogue of Lithuanian farms at www.welcome.lt/zemes-ukis.htm. There is information about specialisation of farms, addresses, phones and other contact information.

The changes in these sectors were minimal. The actual Government strongly supports the use of computer networks for State administration. The official site of the Prime Minister Office www.lrvk.lt has now more informative. There are drafts of new Laws, information on coming events, new decrees and laws. WWW sites operate in all Ministries and in most of the Departments of the Ministries. Only a few sites were established in Local and Regional Authorities.

State support was very limited for these sectors. OSF (Lithuania Sores Foundation), other funds, and companies supported the development of new sites in this sector. OSF financed the developments of 6 WWW portals in tourism, arts and music, and culture heritage.

All main Lithuania theatres have established WWW sites with possibility to reserve tickets. Only a few annual cultural events have established special sites:

A good practice example is the Lithuanian Museums Portal at http://www.muziejai.lt. This site was created with the support of OSF, too. Here is information about all museums in Lithuania: national, regional, private and others. Information about exhibitions and coming events is presented, too.

Two www sites present information about coming soon films: www.cinema.lt and www.filmai.lt. The site www.cinema.lt has plans for on-line booking. The site www.filmai.lt is presenting information about films in main cities as well as in regional cities.

In 2000, in the health care sector, Lithuania Soros Foundation initiated the development of 6 WWW portals. OSF supports the implementation of advanced IT technology in this sector. The OSF supports, through the Medical Internet Program, the development of the medical information network, the development of national databases, provision of conditions for hospitals, medical libraries and other medical establishments with access to Internet, and participates in distance learning and medical education projects.

	Total number of "population"	Total number of Web sites	% of website / total number of "population"	Source
Primary and secondary schools	1301	130	10%	OSF, Ministry of Science and Education
High schools and universities	16	16	100%	LITNET
National ministries	13	13	100%	Internet, Prime Minister office http://www.lrvk.lt
Regional and local authorities (regions, departments/countries, municipalities)	515*	75	13,6%	Lithuania Internet, Ministry of Public Administration Reforms and Local Authorities http://www.vrsrm.lt
Hospitals/clinics	190	30	16%	Lithuania Internet, OSF report
Museums	80	46	58%	Lithuania Internet, OSF report
Libraries	320	50	15,6%	Lithuania Internet, OSF report
Totals	2435	360	14,8%

* 10 districts, 44 regions and 12 city municipalities have WWW sites under PHARE support. Only very few local authorities in rural area are presented on Internet.