#6063
[Second Issue of the Day]
#17
Moscow Times
February 6, 2002
Net Use Leaps 39% in 2001, With More Growth Expected
By Larisa Naumenko
Staff Writer
Internet use in Russia soared last year, with the number of regular web surfers growing 39 percent to 4.3 million people, or 3 percent of the population, Interfax reported a Communications Ministry official as saying.
The total number of Internet users came to some 10 million people, close to 7 percent of the population, the official, Ivan Kurnosov, said at the Northwestern Internet Forum in St. Petersburg on Tuesday.
Regular users are people who surf the Internet at least once a week.
The Russian Internet, or RuNet, saw a 53 percent increase in total traffic to 19.1 million, which includes web surfers outside the country, according to SpyLog, an Internet statistics company. Around 45 percent, or 8.6 million, of RuNet users were Russian residents.
The number of regular RuNet users grew at a slower rate -- to 7.5 million from 4.8 million the year before -- with Russian residents making up 60 percent, or 4.5 million people.
The government must create conditions to provide Internet access to a larger part of the population and budget-funded organizations, Kurnosov said at the forum. Legislation is needed to promote the development of information technology, he said.
Russia has seen a few strides in IT law already this year. A law on electronic signatures -- important for signing deals via the Internet -- and the multibillion dollar Electronic Russia program for IT development were both adopted in January. Laws on e-commerce and electronic-document processing have yet to go through the State Duma.
E-Russia envisions the IT sector accounting for 2 percent of gross domestic product, compared to only 0.61 percent now, said Tseren Tserenov, head of the e-Russia program.
The number of Internet users is expected to reach 26 million people by 2010, according to the program, while the number of personal computers used by businesses is expected to grow six times and the number of household PCs is to increase four times. Approximately every second computer is to be connected to the Internet.
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