“DESI” bio, što si radio?

How to achieve the greatest growth while remaining in the same place? This is possible in Croatia. Thus, it is a country that has recorded the highest growth in the value of the DESI index (the one that measures where we stand as a digital society) among all European Union member states.

Great! Finally, we are climbing in some smart and important area. However, despite this grand growth, we remain 24th out of 28 EU countries. Just like last year. We have not moved up a single place.

This speaks to the depth of the problem. We should probably have the highest growth for years to come to at least reach the first half of EU member states. Or for all others to stop. The DESI (Digital Economy and Society Index) consists of five categories – connectivity, human capital, internet usage, integration of digital technologies, and public digital services, and it records growth across the EU. Croatia, as this index shows, lags the most in the connectivity category, which mainly relates to broadband internet coverage, the density of fixed and mobile connections, the prices of such internet, etc. Specifically, we lag in internet usage (66 percent of Croats regularly use the internet, compared to the EU average of 76 percent). Only 2.8 percent of fixed internet subscriptions have a fast connection (30 percent in the EU), and fixed broadband connections in Croatia are very expensive.

To not make everything seem so bleak, 19 percent of small and medium-sized enterprises in Croatia engage in online sales, which is above the EU average (16 percent), and 8.9 percent are involved in cross-border online sales (compared to the EU average of 7.5 percent).

However, to achieve anything on this crucial issue, it is necessary to improve the entire ecosystem, from increasing digital literacy through the introduction of mandatory computer science and programming in schools, increasing quotas in STEM faculties, investing in internet infrastructure, digitizing public administration and developing digital services, creating a supportive environment for startups, developing digital business models, online sales, and so on, and so forth… Partial measures will hardly help us move from the back. Of course, all this should happen in a developed and competitive economy with significantly greater purchasing power of the population. Unfortunately, it seems that all of this remains just a distant dream.