Call to scale up software import substitution efforts across EAEU

We need to scale up software import substitution efforts across the EAEU member states, Belarusian Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko said at the Digital Almaty 2024 forum on 2 February, BelTA has learned.

“Special attention is paid to software import substitution. This is an absolute priority for us, taking into account the processes taking place in the world. I would like to note that digital sovereignty is a significant aspect of digitalization. In recent years, we have faced a number of geopolitical challenges that have shown that it is impossible to build an economy, including a digital economy, only on the basis of foreign solutions. It is necessary to develop our own, national software that meets our goals and is based on our own technologies with extensive use of open source code,” Roman Golovchenko said.

According to him, the work on import substitution in this area should be organized within the EAEU. “The necessary conditions have already been created. The register of Eurasian software has great potential for the development of digital technologies in our space. This provides preferences for software developers from all EAEU countries within the framework of public procurement, for example, in the Russian Federation. I propose to jointly form mechanisms to expand this area to a regional ecosystem of IT products, which will let EAEU members to use software created in our countries on mutually beneficial terms. This will help us become more united at the digital level,” the prime minister said.