Memorandum
To: Veri Bold, President of the Democratic Republic of Berkmania
From: The Ministry of Commerce
Re: E-Berkmania: What really matters is sustainable economic growth!
1. The Benchmark: Sustainable Economic Growth
The forces for economic growth are technological innovation and entrepreneurship. It is generally recognized that the private sector plays a crucial role in fostering these forces in order to create wealth, employment, and economic growth. For these reasons and because the global benchmark of success is, in the end, sustainable economic growth, I understand it as my duty to advise you to allocate at least three quarters of the budget to the most important branch of the E-Berkmania initiative, that is E-Economia.
2. Berkmania’s Digital Economy
Beside the weaknesses that my fellow Ministers have emphasized in their statements, Berkmania enjoys some important strengths in its current and future ICT landscape. First of all, one must consider our geographic proximity and our long-standing trade relations with the U.S., i.e. with the largest digital economy in the world. Second, the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement between the U.S., Canada, and the Democratic Republic of Berkmania has important impacts on Berkmania’s future development of digital economy, because it lowers, among other things, tariffs and trade barriers for domestic export of hardware and software products, reduces the prices for imports, and creates a more attractive market for direct investment by U.S. firms in Berkmania’s economy. Third, the government has been quick to recognize the importance of an appropriate legal framework, and consequently the parliament has enacted modern laws on issues such as intellectual property, telecommunications, access to markets, and law enforcement, which are crucial for the development of a digital entrepreneurship.
3. The Mission
Based on these strengths (and less focusing on weaknesses), the mission of the E-Economia group—including my own Ministry, the Berkmanian Development Bank, The Berkman Bank of Foreign Trade, and the National Council for Information and Communications Technology—is to make Berkmania a world-leading developer of software products. In order to foster the further development of the digital economy in Berkmania and increase its competitiveness, we suggest—among other things—to support the use of ICT by entrepreneurial, knowledge-based companies in general and by small and medium-sized enterprises in particular.
4. The Projects
Against this background, the E-Economia group has established a multi-year-action plan, including 3 major initiatives:
- New Business Incubators: Business incubators have emerged in both developed and transitional economies as effective means for fostering decentralized economic growth. Based on these experiences and an in-depth analysis of some particularly successful new business incubator projects, The Ministry of Commerce intends to launch an incubation program for the development of the software industry, the main goals of which are to provide management assistance to emerging software enterprises, and access to financial sources, equipment and training facilities, business and/or technical support services, etc. The incubator will be responsible, for instance, to identify niche markets, develop contact databases, provide training, provide incentives for the adoption of international certification standards, etc.
- Software Park: As a longer-term, capital intensive investment which takes advantage of the proximity of human capital and advanced ICT infrastructure, the E-Economia group suggests, as part of Berkmania’s strategic plan, the building of a national software park. Such a software park will have the objective of establishing and managing infrastructure resources (such as data communications facilities, computer facilities); it will provide “single window” services such as project approvals, certification of exports for software exporters; to promote development and export of software services through software assessments, market analyses, etc.; to train professionals and to encourage design and development in the field of software technology and software engineering.
- IT initiative: In order to establish an internal market for information technology products, the Ministry of Commerce works with its partners on a project to provide financial assistance to small and medium-sized enterprises for the purchase of IT products.
Without doubts, these projects are very important steps to
leverage private sector expertise and resources, to increase economic and labor
opportunities, and to foster digital economy. They do all contribute to our
ultimate benchmark: sustainable economic
growth.
I look forward to receiving your decision soon.