High-Speed Networks and IT to Ensure Danish Growth and Welfare
A key element in Denmark's response to current challenges involving intensified international competition and productivity requirements will be initiatives to promote IT and broadband. This is stated by the High-Speed Committee in a new report.
– The recommendations and analyses from the High-Speed Committee are very interesting and noteworthy. The report deserves a central role in the current public debate, says Science Minister Helge Sander.
– We need to focus on the intensified international competition, not least from the new knowledge centres in Asia. They generate substantial growth rates through a very deliberate effort to promote and utilise new technologies. So we must not be lost in reverie and come to a standstill while we enjoy Denmark's leading position in international digital benchmark analyses.
– Efficient use of IT and high-speed connections can contribute to solving the requirements for increased productivity that have to be met these years by the private and public sectors alike.
About one year ago, the Science Minister appointed the High-Speed Committee under the chairmanship of Erik Bonnerup, former head of the administration department in the Ministry of Finance and managing director.
The Committee was assigned the task of recommending how Denmark can develop into a high-speed society – and how all Danish citizens and businesses can have access to ultra-fast broadband everywhere in Denmark as soon as possible.
– The Committee's ambitious recommendations are by no means a matter for the Science Ministry alone, but for the whole Government. So after the consultation phase we will deal with the report in further details here.
– But basically the Committee's recommendations – such as strengthening the digitalisation of the public sector and the Danes' IT competencies, promoting green IT and what is known as 'cloud computing' – are very much in line with the Government's policy.
– In fact, we have already started to meet some of the recommendations following the negotiations on the Finance Act this autumn.
Helge Sander considers it important that there has been a consensus in the Committee that broadband development should still be market-based and technology-neutral.
– At the same time, the Committee has focused on the ability of local authorities to give a helping hand in the most sparsely populated areas if demand alone cannot ensure access to ultra-fast broadband. This is of course a very crucial issue as the Government is dedicated to ensuring a good development and growth potential all over the country.
– We have seen similar discussions within the framework of EU and in a number of other EU countries, and the Government will of course devote its efforts to finding a balanced solution model, says Helge Sander.
The report of the High-Speed Committee will be circulated for consultation over the next few weeks.
For further comments by Science Minister Helge Sander, please contact the Ministry's Information Manager Allan Boldt, tel.: +45 33 92 97 39, .
For comments by the chairman of the High-Speed Committee, Erik Bonnerup, please contact the Committee's secretariat in the National IT and Telecom Agency, att. Jakob Willer, Head of Division, tel.: +45 35 45 01 19, .
The High-Speed Committee's report, parts I and II, and a number of annexes associated with the report, are published (in Danish) on www.højhastighedskomiteen.dk.
