CARTHAGE - A cabinet meeting, held on Wednesday under President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali's chairmanship, focused on the communication technologies sector's contribution to the implementation of the presidential programme in its chapter pertaining to the digital economy development.
The meeting reviewed the results and indicators the communication technologies sector recorded over the recent years and Tunisia's positioning on the regional and international scene as a destination of promising activities.
The meeting also reviewed ways to modernise the telecommunications infrastructure, develop digital services, promote human resources and support investment and technological innovation.
The meeting took the following measures:
Further lower charges of broadband Internet access,
Generalise connection of all ministries to very high- speed Internet and spread this network to 50 additional areas among the services areas, industrial zones, university campuses and hospital centres during 2010.
Increase the Tunisia's Internet bandwidth connection to the global Internet network to reach over 40 gigabits/second by late 2010.
Generalise Internet services via fixed and mobile telecommunication networks and improve the quality of services.
In line with the Head of State's keenness to provide Tunisian families with the digital opportunity, including pupils and students, the meeting decided what follows:
Develop opportunities of Internet access in public spaces within schools, high schools, faculties, public libraries and youth centres.
Call upon the different stakeholders to put on sale packages of connected computers and obtain the label of the programme "Digital Opportunity for Each Tunisian Family."
The meeting also decided to:
Cut by 50% connection of cybercafés to the ADSL network of "Tunisie Télécom" and Internet service-providers and conduct a study on these centres during the current year to improve their activities and help them make available additional services.
Allow technological parks to offer serviced plots of land to enterprises with high technological content to build their production units, in accordance with international standards in force and specifications that take into consideration the benefiting firm's employability.
As part of developing human resources and national skills, the meeting decided to:
Perfect implementation of the qualifying training programme of technical skills designed to reach over 20,000 qualified skills by late 2014.
Implement a complementary training programme as part of the 21-21 National Employment Fund's interventions for the benefit of 2000 university graduates in exact sciences so that they acquire the needed skills in the information and communication technologies and languages, allowing them to take skills qualification training programme.
To promote the content industry, President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali decided to help 50 associations in 2010 benefit from training sessions in participatory web technologies 2.0 and a bonus of 10,000 dinars for the creation of a web site.
The Head of State also ordered to start marketing the Arabic Tunisian domain names and cut fees of this domain (.tn).
The meeting also decided to set a preliminary list of important projects related to digital services in several sectors, such as higher education (electronic student card), education (electronic space of pupils and their guardians) and health (e-medicine).
Regarding research, development and technological innovation within firms operating in the communication technologies sector, the President of the Republic directed to devise an action plan to enhance the telecommunication networks operators' and other relevant companies' adherence to programmes of research, innovation, identification and achievement of projects in partnership with specialised research structures and innovating enterprises under unifying contract-programmes.
© Agence Tunis Afrique Presse 2010
