The global market for information and communications technology (ICT) is expected to grow by 1.9 percent to 2.3 trillion euros in 2010.

Since ICT permeates all important branches of economy, ITL has initiated several co-operation projects with other economic sectors. The following is a short overview of three co-operation projects: development of wood logistics in an e-environment, development of an Innovation Centre, and establishment of an ICT Demo Centre.

When businesses make use of modern information and communications technologies, they can ensure a substantial return on investment by ensuring real time management of business processes, integration of internal and external processes, as well as support of innovative processes. Enterprises in Latvia and the other Baltic States have not been particularly active in making use of these opportunities. Even more, small and medium enterprises lag far behind larger ones, both for objective and subjective reasons. This creates great risks in terms of the competitiveness of the businesses. This paper sketches out the existing situation and offers a set of recommendations on what the state could do to improve the situation.

An E-business education and training programme has been developed under the auspices of the eBCM-VET project [1]. It is now available to learn about E-business, particularly at the retail level. The results of the project were presented at an international conference in Bucharest in October 2007.

This paper is devoted to a statistical depiction of the information and communications technology (ICT) sector in Latvia. The data come from the Latvian Central Statistical Bureau and the Latvian Information and Communications Technology Association (LIKTA). The aim of their joint project was to create a system of statistical indicators in line with international methodologies and local user needs which would allow them to characterise the sector. There were attempts to economise on resources and to avoid any excessive burden on respondents. The result is a snapshot of the existing situation, along with recommendations on how the situation can be improved.

Internet usage by enterprises 2007

Internet usage in 2007 Households and individuals

A study commissioned by the Latvian Ministry of Economics was conducted in August and September of 2007 to find out what businesspeople in Latvia think about the effects which administrative procedures have on the country�s business environment, focusing also on the issue of electronic governance. A total of 720 businesspeople were surveyed by SIA Aksedo. This paper focuses on the most interesting results.

During the second quarter of 2007 the Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia (CSB) with the financial support of the European Commission conducted a survey on the use of information and communications technologies (ICT). The main aim was obtain data on the use of computers and the Internet among Latvian households and individuals. On the basis of one and the united methodology the study was conducted in each of the member states of the EU, therefore the results are comparable. In all member states surveyed respondents were at age of 16 to74 years. In Latvia, the survey involved 3,100 households and 6,500 individuals.

This paper offers a review of a study about the use of information and communications technologies (ICT) in businesses of Latvia in January 2007. Conducted by the Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia, the study focused on the use of computers, the Internet and Internet websites, the spread of broadband Internet services, the aims of Internet use , e-commerce, and the kinds of information technologies that are used in enterprises.