World Bank to help Serbia in transition to digital economy

World Bank is ready to help Serbian economy to develop through implementation of new technologies, said Tony Verheijen, World Bank Country Manager for Serbia on Thursday.

Presenting the World Bank's annual development report, with this year's topic "Digital Dividends", Verheijen cited one of its conclusions that "countries who invest more into digital technologies achieve bigger growth".

"We wish to help Serbia so that in following 4 to 5 years it could make more benefit from the implementation of new technologies with private business as the driving force of its economy, and not state companies" he said.

World Bank Development Report 2016: Digital Dividends ranks Serbia among upper middle income countries who are still in a process of transition towards universal internet use with only 4-5 percent of its GDP coming from digital economy.

According to the report, priorities of such countries in the area of digital economy should be to "build effective competition regulation and enforcement capacity, teach advanced cognitive and socio-emotional skills that complement technology, and move toward effective e-government system."

Verheijen noted that Serbia needs more investments into infrastructure and promotion of the private-public partnership, but welcomed the country's decision to implement e-government strategy so that a number of services, such as registration of new born babies and electronic building permits, became available online, thus reducing costs and saving time.

However he said that e-government should cover more areas such as pensions, healthcare, education system and other public services.

President of the Serbian Chamber of Commerce Marko Cadez said that digital technologies have great importance both for citizens, economy and the state because they create new work places based on high technology, knowledge and well-developed infrastructure. Endit