Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks over the phone with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan while he inspects the work on the Turkish Stream gas pipeline project aboard the Pioneering Spirit pipeline-laying ship in the Black Sea near Anapa, Russia, June 23, 2017. (REUTERS PHOTO)
MOSCOW, July 5 (Xinhua) -- Russia plans to invest 200 billion rubles (around 3.4 billion U.S. dollars) in developing its information technologies this year alone, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday.
Putin made the remarks at a meeting of the Council for Strategic Development and Priority Projects, which was convened to examine a program for building up a digital economy by 2024.
"The formation of a digital economy is a matter of national security and independence for Russia, and of competitiveness of domestic companies and the country's position in the world arena for the long-term perspective, in fact, for decades to come," Putin said, according to an official Kremlin transcript.
He said Russia has made significant progress in many areas of digital development in the last few years.
The share of households with access to the Internet in Russia increased to 74.8 percent in 2016 from 48.4 percent in 2010, while the average Internet speed rose by 29 percent, which is comparable to the level of France or Italy, Putin said.
By early 2017, the Russian market for commercial data storage and processing centers had grown to 14.5 billion rubles (246 million dollars), he added.
Putin said that Russia's capital, Moscow, had become one of the world leaders in the use of digital technologies in modern urban infrastructure, surpassing such metropolises as Toronto, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Barcelona and Sydney.
Now the country has to create an effective mechanism to implement the complex project of developing its economy "unprecedented in its scope, significance, and impact on the life of the country and every individual," Putin said.
The main directions of the program include eliminating legal barriers to the development of advanced technologies, creating a supporting infrastructure, improving the education system, reaching universal digital literacy, and building an effective management system that will unite the efforts of the government, businesses and scientific and research organizations at all levels, he said.
The Council for Strategic Development and Priority Projects is an advisory body under the president of Russia set up to ensure interaction between federal and local government bodies, public associations, scientific and other organizations in considering strategic issues of national development.
