Croatian ICT Sector Reached HRK 21 Billion in Revenue and Employs Over 22,000 People

HUP ICT Association held a meeting of HUP ICT Association members with the media representatives. The plans for the future period and H1 2015 activities were presented at the meeting, as well as and the current data regarding the Croatian ICT sector. Until fall 2015, two important initiatives are starting up: drafting the documents that will contain the official position on topics important for further development of Croatia's ICT industry as well as establishing a foundation to help young people who want to pursue their career in science and technic, with an emphasis on computing and IT.

Croatian ICT sector reached annual revenue of HRK 21 billion, currently employing more than 22,000 people, and the trend of opening new workplaces is high in the software development and computing services segment. In the last 7 years, an average annual increase of 10 % was realized in the mentioned segments, and only in the last two years, export of software and IT services increased by 45 % and reached HRK 1.87 billion.
 
„The progress is notable, however, we cannot be satisfied with the pace and the dynamics that impact our competitiveness compared to other countries.  The law on state information infrastructure was passed almost a year ago but it cannot be implemented, due to slowness in passing the rule book. Because of that, the informatization projects suffer, and there is no necessary coordination“ highlighted the Director of HUP-ICT,  Adrian Ježina.
 
Hrvoje Sagrak, the leader of the work group for e-business and e-government spoke about reaching the eCroatia 2020 Strategy. HUP-ICT believes that passing a strategy is a multi- resource and not just a sector question, and being such, requires a horizontal coordination of the competent ministries, because that would precisely put an emphasis on the digital economy and competitive economy compared to citizens services, which are in the focus of this strategy. The association welcomes the recent decision of the Government of the Republic of Croatia, on founding the National Council for Digital Economy.
 
New IT professionals on the labor market represent one of the greater challenges for further IT sector development in the upcoming years. Last year, only on the Internet portal MojPosao, more than 2,000 ICT job openings were posted, while 1,500 students graduate each year.  Hrvoje Balen, the leader of the work group for education and employment highlights: “Unfortunately, the praiseworthy efforts in the reform of the education system will show the first results for our sector in 2035 and it is necessary that the national digital workplaces development strategy is prepared and starts to be implemented. The parallel indicators and employers' experiences show that Croatia does not  only have a problem in insufficient number of people and the share of digital workplaces in the number of employees, but also in the personnel structure, which structurally has to be addressed on the level of high education and adult education.“
 
Precisely due to the facts mentioned, until autumn, two important initiatives will be launched: drafting the document that will contain the official attitudes about the topics important for further development of Croatian ICT industry, and establishing a foundation for helping young people who want to develop their skills and broaden their knowledge taking the path of science and engineering, placing the emphasis on computing and IT. Željko Skorić, the leader of the work group for establishing the foundation stated that through scholarships, awards and financial supports, HUP-ICT wants to encourage excellence and the interest in studying science and IT. In this concrete way, they wish to contribute to solving the problem of an insufficient number of IT experts in Croatia, which is in line both with the Croatian and European guidelines and strategies.
 
Communications Ericsson Nikola Tesla