ICT service exports in Kazakhstan – WorldBank
After reading the Active readings for ICT and the digital gaps around the world, the article “Information Minister holds meetings with counterparts in Almaty” published by Kazinform is very fitting. President Nulsurtan Nazarbayev encouraged a forum meeting with Dauren Abayev, Kazakhstan’s Minister of Information and Communications, and many other Eurasian countries including Belarus and Uzbekistan in an attempt to plan for “digitalization” of all these nations. Within the past year, Nazarbayev has pushed for a movement towards greater tech modernization in Kazakhstan. One method includes changing Kazakh’s Cyrillic alphabet into a Latin alphabet. As Kazinform is state-funded, the article does not imply any negatives of the meeting or reasons for increased attention to the tech industry. Increased use of ICTs will help political communication of these nations – hopefully along with other regions as well – and develop agriculture and entrepreneurship. There are no direct quotes from the meeting nor any analyses by outside sources within the article. Though greater incorporation of ICTs is a good thing and will economically help the populations of this region, Kazakhstan has larger economic problems that may be masked by the amount of news coverage that is based on the government digitalization. Kazinform tagged this article with the keyword ‘Digital Kazakhstan,’ which had 15 articles written within the past 2 weeks on the cite.
Source: “Information Minister Holds Meetings with Counterparts in Almaty.” Kazinform, 3 Feb. 2018, www.inform.kz/en/information-minister-holds-meetings-with-counterparts-in-almaty_a3141995.
Media Source: “Kazakhstan – ICT Service Exports (% of Service Exports, BoP).” ICT Service Exports (% of Service Exports – BoP) in Kazakhstan, tradingeconomics.com/kazakhstan/ict-service-exports-percent-of-service-exports-bop-wb-data.html.