Information Technology in HUNGARY
Government Policies
Under the Telecommunications Act of 1992, the Ministry of Transport, Communication and Water Management has been given the responsibility for regulation. This agency handles key telecommunications policy issues and has overall responsibility for the development of the telecommunications sector in Hungary.
The national information technology strategy defines the information infrastructure as made up of the following levels (33):
Level 1 – Telecommunications Infrastructure (networks and their basic voice and data services)
Level 2 – Computerized networks and related basic services
Level 3 – Large-scale information applications (state administration, training, health care, and transportation information systems)
Level 4 – Information life (work style, private life, values, legal and organizational regulation merged with the opportunities offered by IT)
In May of 1997, Dr. Károly Lotz, Minister of Transport, Communication and Water Management stated: "by the turn of the millenium, wide range of infrastructure must reach international standard and must be modernized. Instead of stopping and hindering, infrastructure should play an active role in the development of the Hungarian economy, its structural adaptation to international requirements of competitiveness and should create, through its orders, a growing market for them." (34)
The government is pushing forward with an aggressive plan of growth and development in the telecommunications sphere. They are insisting that operating conditions of the competitive servicing sphere and the business-type services in monopolistic position must be improved, and unclear or missing legal and economic conditions must be created. AS well, the government is pushing for state financing of R&D projects that cannot be executed with profits by private ventures (35).
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Last update: May 11, 1998 by Jennifer L. Houley