Skopje, 26 April 2024 (MIA) - The Chamber of Commerce for Information and Communication Technologies – MASIT said it would initiate the establishment of a separate parliamentary committee on digitization, as well as amendments to the Law on Labor Relations related to remote work. This proposal received the support of SDSM’s leadership, which met Friday with the Chamber’s management.

According to SDSM leader Dimitar Kovachevski and the President of MASIT’s Assembly, Aneta Antova-Pesheva, their meeting focused on the establishment of a separate institution or agency on digitization, which, they said, is an idea shared by both sides.

Antova-Peshova highlighed that the ICT industry, as one of the fastest growing sectors, currently consists of 3.200 companies employing over 20.000 mainly young people, whose wages are growing by 30 percent annually. The companies have a turnover of EUR 1.5 billion, half a billion of which is in exports.

“We are continuing discussions with the parties vying for Parliament. Today we had a productive discussion with Kovachevski and Fatmir Bytyqi. We saw very good cooperation for the future. This is the only place where the ideas and discussions about the country’s digitization can come together, and we hope we will have good cooperation with all parties,” Antova Pesheva said. 

Kovachevski welcomed MASIT’s initiative for the establishment of a separate committee on digitization in the Parliament of North Macedonia.

“It is a good initiative. We need to discuss it with all parties so that immediately after the new parliamentary composition we can establish a committee exclusively focused on digitization which will also discuss artificial intelligence, and in addition to the political parties, will include representatives from MASIT, the other chambers and larger companies that are leading the progress of the ICT industry in the country. We spoke about what we have in our election manifesto that corresponds with the industry’s expectations, such as the establishment of a separate institution on digitization, as well as a digitization of processes in the country that need to be readily available to the citizens. We spoke about other things as well initiated by the Chamber and which seem exceptionally logical and useful to me, such as amendments to the Law on Labor Relations to introduce novelties related to remote work and availability of technologies in various places,” Kovachevski said. 

Photo/Video: MIA