April 2000

Central and Eastern European Countries Synthesis of Update Memos

In the Central and Eastern European countries, national Ministries are the main entities that develop web sites. We note that all Ministries have a web site in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia. Percentages are also very high in Bulgaria (86%) and Latvia (92%). In most countries, the rate of high schools and universities with a web site is greater than 55%. In Bosnia-Herzegovina and Lithuania all universities own a web site.

Web characteristics by country:

Albania : only 10 companies have servers linked directly to Internet. Out of these companies, 6 are private, 1 public institution and 3 donor institutions. In general, these web sites support only one organization or subject, not multiple ones. Because of the low level of Internet service development, many institutions do not have web sites. During past 3 months, 10 ISPs have been set up in the form of Internet Cafés, Internet Centers, etc. Because of the short supply of ISPs, the costs are relatively high. Concerning the Ministerial web sites, some ministries are in the tender process for finding the proper ISP, while some others are planning to have their own web sites.

Bulgaria : A steady increase of the number of web sites and improvement in their design and information content is taking place. This trend is especially typical for business web sites, travel agencies, media and financial institutions. Moreover, some interesting events concerning web sites were promoted, notably: Web design seminar; Short introductory courses on Web design, Competition for the best school web site.

Czech Republic : The changes compared to previous period are mostly related to increasing numbers for museums and hospitals. Despite of the rapid development in the commercial sector, the public administration institutions still lack funding for increasing the number of Internet services that they provide. Regional / local authorities and museums rarely have independent web sites.

Estonia : The analysis of Estonian web pages was carried out by BMF Gallup Media. In the survey it is stated that 5% of Estonian enterprises and institutions have their own web sites. Amongst other conclusions in the survey, it is mentioned that the institutions of a non-profit nature are better represented on the Internet, compared with for-profit enterprises. The highest representation of organizations is for those operating in the following sectors :

• Government-related institutions (88% of total number)
• Computer-related industry (77%)
• Institutions of higher education (40%)

The survey has shown that the best performing public administration organizations are state institutions, followed by cities and other local governments.

In the first quarter of 2000 the company NetEntrance’i carried out a survey among 70 enterprises. As a result it has been shown that 32% of Estonian enterprises have not benefited from owning a web page. One of the explanatory factors could be the inconsistency in updating and developing these web pages as 44% of web-pages have not been updated during the last six months.

Latvia : some on-line commercial sites began to allow on-line payments by credit cards.

Lithuania : Many small local companies use www sites for presentation and advertising their products and services. The legal basis for e-commerce is foreseen in the first half of 2000, however, Omnitel, the leader in mobile communications and an Internet provider established an e-commerce site, with on-line payment service based on credit cards. All Lithuanian banks are planning to start Internet banking services in the middle of the year 2000. Concerning financing, state support was very limited. The Lithuanian Soros Foundation and other funds supported the development of new sites. Notably, the Lithuanian Soros Foundation financed the developments of 6 www portals for tourism, arts, music and cultural heritage. At the same time, it initiated the development of 6 www portals for the health care sector.

Macedonia : The last quarter has seen increased bandwidth in international Internet links, the construction of the National Backbone MTnet, reduced prices for all Internet services and an increase in interest about the Internet, especially in the education sector and private companies. The creation of the Open Society Institute has contributed to the increase in the number of web sites in the education sector.

Poland : There has been a substantial increase in the number of web-sites of regional and local authorities due to the significant number of projects launched at regional and local authority level (over 24% of projects are launched at the local level and 14% at the regional level).

Slovenia : During the last three months, there has been a significant increase in the total number of web sites. The largest growth in web presence among organizations was achieved by hospitals (167%). There was also a notable increase in the number of primary and secondary schools with a web presence; reaching 42.5% and 29.2% respectively. Compared to the period Q1 (June 1999), a large increase was seen in the categories of libraries (104%) and municipalities (96%).

Percentage of Websites per sector in the Central and Eastern European Countries

Number of web sites in percentage of the number of entities

Note: Bosnia & Herzegovina : only main cities are taken into account in the statistics presented.