Digital Transformation of Montenegrin Society is a Priority

Digital transformation of Montenegrin society and economy has to be a priority – this was a message sent from the panel discussion at Gala Dinner held within the Program for Better Business Environment organized by the AmCham to Montenegro. The participants of this panel discussion were Ms. Dragica Sekulić – Minister of Economy, Ms. Suzana Pribilović – Minister of Public Administration, Mr. Darko Radunović – Minister of Finance, Mr. Kemal Purišić – Minister of Labor and Social Welfare, Mr. Kenan Hrapović – Minister of Health, Mr. Aleksandar Mitrović – State Secretary of the Ministry of Education and Mr. Damir Davidović – State Secretary of the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Tourism.

President of the AmCham to Montenegro Mr. Nikola Tripković pointed out in his opening remarks that digitalization i.e. digital revolution that we all live in should be understood as an important development chance, a chance to meet numerous socio-economic challenges and increase efficiency, productivity and transparency of all business processes.

• For that reason, AmCham, together with the Montenegrin Chamber of Commerce, Foreign Investors’ Council and Managers’ Association has forwarded a joint initiative to the Prime Minister by which we have proposed to establish a high ranking body in the Government that would lead the process of digital transformation of Montenegro, and which would be composed of the senior representatives from the Government, private sector, academia and scientific community- President of AmCham pointed out.

Minister of Public Administration Ms. Suzana Pribilović said on this occasion that she welcomed this AmCham initiative because establishment of the quality business environment and removal of the business barriers represented one of the key priorities.

• This has been also recognized by the new Law on Electronic Management that was drafted by the Government. This Law provisions for the establishment of the Electronic Management Council which shall be monitoring the development of the electronic management and propose measures for its improvement. The composition of the Council shall be made of the representatives of the state authorities as well as the representatives of the ICT community – Minister Pribilović said.

Minister of Health Mr. Kenan Hrapović said that the institution he was heading had undertaken a number of important activities in order to introduce and implement the process of digital transformation into the health care system of Montenegro. By the end of the last year, the document titled ‘Interoperability Framework for the Health Care System’ was adopted, being the first of its kind in the region and representing one of the prerequisites for the broader implementation of these processes.

In addition, a number of projects that shall significantly change the approach to and the organization of the health care services have been initiated, such as: telemedicine project, information science technology introduction into the main referral Clinical Centre of Montenegro, as well as electronic health care file.

• An electronic health care file is one of the key projects in the area of health care provision. It is our intention to make it a hub, independent system which shall contain all the basic data relevant for the state of health of the citizens. All the health care systems shall have the possibility to access those data and update them depending on the level of their authorization and clearance – Minister Hrapović explained.

He also added that the idea was to have the private health care institutions included as well at some point s and that it was expected for the system to become operational as of the end of 2020.

By emphasizing the importance of digitalization being a precondition for the establishment of a modern and efficient health care system, the Executive Director of AmCham dr. Marko Miročević announced holding a conference to be organized by the AmCham Health Care Committee and planned for April of the next year, which shall be dedicated to the digitalization process within health care.

• Since this topic is of utmost importance, it is our intention to gather the experts not only from our country but from the region, the EU and the USA as well. We are positive that the conference shall contribute to the public discussion and establishing the guidelines for the implementation of the digital transformation process in the area of health care, AmCham Executive Director Mr. Miročević said, who was also a moderator for the panel discussion in question.

Minister of Economy, Ms. Dragica Sekulić pointed out during the discussion that the Government of Montenegro had already shown its readiness and strategic determination to work on the development of public-private partnerships and especially in the process of the digitalization of society as a whole, whereby every potential contribution coming from the private sector was more than welcome.

• This determination of ours is further confirmed by the new Draft Law on Public-Private Partnership which, from a legal point of view, established cooperation between the public and private sectors in this area as well – Minister said adding that the most important steps taken in the process of digital transformation had to be aimed at educational and advisory activities as well as at establishing strategic partnerships with those who provided technology, as well as with companies willing to apply those solutions in their business activities.

Mr. Aleksandar Mitrović, State Secretary at the Ministry of Education pointed out that the digitalization challenges in the area of education had to be addressed carefully and thoroughly as he considered digitalization to be one of the priorities. Mr. Mitrović pointed out that for the IT equipment only, EUR 3.5 million would be allocated during the following year, whereby computer equipment  would be changed in almost all schools, by which the conditions for teaching the IT subjects primarily would be improved.

In addition, the Ministry of Education has established a team in charge of preparing the Digital Classroom Project where digital content shall be used, i.e. the textbook content shall be transferred into the digital form, whereby the relevant pilot project is expected to start next year. The Ministry of Education has also supported numerous projects, such as ‘Schools for the 21^st Century’ in cooperation with the British Council, within which the schools shall be given 4000 microbit computers.

The Ministry of Sustainable Development and Tourism also supports the implementation of all solutions contributing to the interconnection of modern technologies and the sustainable development concept as Mr. Damir Davidović, the State Secretary of the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Tourism, pointed out during the panel discussion. He also emphasized that it was not possible to talk about sustainable development without the application of modern technologies in almost all segments of society, whereby strong economy represented a precondition for the development of investment capacities in this area.

The Action Plan for Improving Business Environment adopted this year by the Government of Montenegro covered five areas as follows:  starting doing business, construction license issuing, approving the connections to the electricity network, paying taxes and real estate registration process, Minister of Finance Mr. Darko Radunović said.

Key activities provisioned for by this Action Plan refer to the establishment of digital processes, first of all aimed at electronic registration of companies and establishment of E-Cadastre.

• In addition, implementation of this Action Plan requires change of a number of existing laws such as: Law on Commercial Companies, Law on Spatial Planning and Object Construction, Law on Energy and Law on State Land Survey and Cadastre, Minister of Finance said.

In addition, Minister of Labor and Social Welfare Mr. Kemal Purišić said that both employees and employers faced the problems imposed by the growing globalization and constant technological changes influencing the very nature of labor and thus producing non-standard forms of labor. He said that in Montenegro one third of all labor contracts were limited service agreements i.e. those for temporary work, adding that the positive regulations recommended by the International Labor Organization and the EU, as ratified by Montenegro, were that non-standards forms of labor were supposed to be approved upon the legal regulation of limitations, in order to provide for the additional flexibility of the labor market and protect the interests of both employees and employers, thus enabling the business development and creating jobs.

• The new Labor Law provisions for the longer period covered by the Temporary Work Agreements for the period of 36 months, the limitation for outsourcing of employees through the Agencies for the period 24 months, establishing Employment Agreements outside the seat of the employer (distance work and working from home) as well as regulating Employment Agreement for doing household work, all the above-mentioned being considered non-standard forms of work, Mr. Purišić said during the panel discussion.

Ambassador of the USA to Montenegro H.E. Judy Rising Reinke said in her address that that the Embassy planned to organize a trip to the Silicon Valley for entrepreneurs, business leaders and government officials in order to forge stronger commercial ties between the two countries. To that end, the Ambassador pointed out that the Embassy would be a partner to the AmCham in fostering cooperation between public and private sectors in providing digital services for the public which was initiated by organizing a seminar in cooperation with the Office of Innovation from California and organized at ReSPA in Danilovgrad.

• I would encourage AmCham and the Montenegrin Government to deepen their engagement with California’s Office of Innovation, and my team stands ready to assist with that – Ambassador Rising Reinke said.

As of April 2017, AmCham has been implementing the Program titled ‘Partnership for Better Business Environment’ aimed at raising mutual understanding between the public and private sectors in order to contribute to the more efficient removal of business barriers, better quality of texts of legal documents and better implementation of legal norms both by the public administration and the private sector. For eleven years now, AmCham is a business association dedicated to the improvement of business environment in order to attract American and other foreign investments.