Russia to present information society development strategy at All-European conference

A pan-European regional conference on information society will be held in the Rumanian capital on November 7 through 9, 2002. This conference is a preliminary stage of the World Summit to be held in Geneva in December next year and in Tunisia in December 2005, the Russian chief delegate Andrei Korotkov, first deputy communication minister, told RIA Novosti in an interview.

In Bucharest, he will present an information society development strategy, developed by countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States in Bishkek and Moscow. Its distinguishing feature is the provision of equal access for citizens to world information resources, development of telemedicine, remote teaching and other socially-important programmes, preservation of civilization and linguistic diversity of cultures.

According to Andrei Korotkov, the federal goal-oriented programme Electronic Russia, work on which began last January, has linked to the world net over 2,500 postal outlets - open access points to the Internet. In 2003 the number of such centers will increase by another several thousand. Priority among collective users of the world information resources goes to educational institutions, libraries, structures in the social sphere, said Korotkov.