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The Italian Minister of Technology Innovation and Digital Transformation has vowed to simplify red tape by accelerating the deployment of digital platforms for citizens across the country, as part of a 248 billion euro recovery plan aimed at revitalizing the euro zone’s third largest economy.
Vittorio Colao, former CEO of Vodafone, said the online portal will enable Italians to do everything from paying taxes to booking vaccines, as well as simplify overlapping regional and national capabilities.
He added that this will be a catalyst for the pandemic economic restructuring led by Prime Minister Mario Draghi.
He told the British “Financial Times”: “If I have to say why Italy is lagging behind today, it is because of legal and administrative complexity. As a government, we are determined to simplify it.”
He added: “Now is the time to do this. This has never happened in the past, because there may be no sense of urgency or strong resistance. The tragic story of Covid is that it not only took lives, but also Important ways have impacted the economy. Now, people’s sense of urgency and needs are higher.”
Draghi, the former president of the European Central Bank, was appointed by the Italian president earlier this year to demand the formation of a government of national unity after the collapse of its last alliance. Colao served as the CEO of British Telecom Group Vodafone from 2008 to 2018 and lived in London until he became minister. He is a political novice and one of several business experts appointed by Draghi.
He said that he is determined to expand the use of the government’s existing online portal to the entire population, and then upgrade it to “a notification platform that includes all information on fines, taxes, court orders, and vaccinations.”
“It looks like science fiction, but it’s not.” He said: “Today, we have 20 million users on the platform. “
About one-third of Italians have signed up to the existing platform called Spid. Colao said that in the first quarter of this year, digital services have processed 120 million transactions, compared with 143 million for the full year of 2020.
Colao said that increasing the number of digital interactions between Italians and the country through the website will help the government plan to invest in education and digital skills.
The utilization rate of online services in Italy is the lowest in the European Union. According to Eurostat data, in 2019, only 38% of Italians between the ages of 16 and 74 purchased goods and services online, the lowest proportion in the EU, second only to Bulgaria and Romania.
In 2019, half of Italians between the ages of 16 and 74 used a laptop or handheld device to access the Internet from their office or home, compared with an average of 73% of all Europeans.
Colau said that the scale of the investment package supported by the European Union is “surprising”, “but the real core of our plan is reform and investment in people. Italy now wants to invest in its own people and talents, and to be here. People provide more opportunities.”
He added: “From kindergarten to doctoral studies, you have to invest in the entire conveyor belt. In the past, this country was very unstable, and your region was not stable yet. You have to be systematic, because the production cycle of knowledge innovation is 15 to 30 year.”
Colau said these efforts will help the country create conditions to prevent the loss of overseas talents and attract foreign investors.
He said: “The two things that foreign investors often say in Italy are: we can’t find the right people, and the system is terrible.” “Am I 100% confident that we will achieve all these goals? Well, we must be ambitious. Maybe we will miss some chances, but if we reach 90%, that will make Italy the best in the game.”
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