Academy of Public Administration invites guest lecturers to take part at the International Conference “State Regulation of the Economy and Enterprise Efficiency Enhancement”. E-government is one of the conference’s keynote issues that will be discussed in the framework of the Egoprise Project. The international event will take place on April 26-27 in Minsk and gather experts from Russia, Ukraine, South Korea, Latvia and other countries.
For more information on the conference, please read Call for Papers…
At the Working Group meeting carried out in April 2011 in Berlin results of the document research concerning information obligations for small and middle-sized enterprises in Baltic Sea Region Countries and Belarus were presented.
Objective of demand analysis was to identify relevant information obligations causing high administrative costs especially for small and medium enterprises in seven Baltic Sea Region countries and to identify relevant information obligations for hiring a foreign employee. Due to the special situation for Belarus only the general situation and to a small extent issues regarding optimizing the business environment and administrative burden reduction were covered by the study. The method used was an extensive web research and a document analysis.
The study builds on the results gained by interviews with representatives from private and public sector in Belarus, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in summer and autumn 2010 to identify the most challenging business related processes and weaknesses. The results were presented at the Working Group Meeting in September last year in Tallinn and provided a first insight into the current situation and challenges the companies have to cope with. To select processes to be further investigated the partnership agreed to hire an external expert, experienced in the field of e-government, to carry out an additional demand analysis.
The final report is a cumulative summary of the works of the partners and the expert.
The study is available at www.egoprise.eu
Basing on the results of the demand analysis and interviews in partner countries partners from Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, and Latvia were requested to select three processes with a need for improvement to be further worked on/ improved. As a result of country presentations at the Workshop a first draft with processes to be selected has been compiled at the Workshop in Berlin.
In that context The Potsdam eGovernment Competence Centre ifG.CC has been contracted to model process chains between business and public sector. Main objective is to identify and model for selected countries processes between companies and administration in order to point out modernization potential with regard to egovernment. Since the process modeling refers to a common method it will be possible to compare process workflows in study regions, to identify optimization potentials and to transfer -whenever appropriate- in the further development respective solutions. The compilation of process profiles and on the spot interviews and workshops with representatives from public and private sector prepare the ground for process modeling. Final results on process modeling are expected in summer 2011. 
Interim Workshop in Vilnius-project review and perspectives From 26th till 27th of May 30 Egoprise representatives met at the premises of partner organization International Business School at Vilnius University for an Interim Workshop. It focuses on an exchange about status of the project and upcoming activities.
As guest speakers from Lithuania Romualdas Petraitis (Lithuanian Institute for Public Administration) and Gytus Nemanis (Microsoft) were invited to explain the situation regarding eGoverment for SMEs competitiveness in BSR from governmental and business perspective. Beside others they underlined that several solutions on improved business oriented services were already developed. However, as far as a harmonized European Infrastructure is not given and pushed enough e-government for private sector will not fully exploit its potential.
After a short review on the study "Information Obligations for Small and Medium sized Enterprises in Baltic Sea Region Countries and Belarus" by Friederike Thessel from the ifG. CC first results on process modeling in partner countries were presented.
In all countries processes related to the employement of foreign labour are in focus of investigations. Further fields of interests are the application of a building permit, analysed in D?nmark and Estonia, as well as business registration processes, analysed in Germany and Estonia. Whereas in Estonia, Latvia, Finalnd and Lithuania process profiles and process modeling could be already finalized, research is on going in Denmark and Germany.
On 3rd of May Estonian partner Vitali Sergejev, representing Egoprise Partner Narva Business Advisory Service Foundation, and Friedrike Thessel came together with representatives of Narva Municipaility to discuss identification of workflow processes and the opportunity for virtual platform developemnt in Narva. The needs and possebilities to improve the process of applying a building permit and to register a business, selected as services to be further investigated, were discussed. Representatives from public administration gave deep insights into recent situation and use of IT and egovernment services. Participants showed a great interest for improvements which will be elaborated within Egoprise.
In Riga a modeling workshop were organised by Latvian partners Foundation "Riga Business University", Latvian Chamber of Commerce, Latvian Association of Local and Regional Governments on 23rd and 24 th of May. Project representatives got an detailed overview on business registration procedure first. Latvian might be among countries with fastest registration. However, according to Adviser of the Latvian Association of Local and Regional Governments Guntars Krasovskis, there is still a need for more user-friendliness and omission of paperwork (e.g. with regard to warranties of statutory capital). Therefore a close dialogue among partners, the Register of Entreprises and banking sector is highly appreciated.
If it comes to employment processes of foreign labour it has been underlined that clearer process descriptions regarding foreign recruitment on the one hand and a electronic database on secondary employment issues are needed on the other hand .
State Regional Development Agency responsible for website latvija.lv intends to become prime source of information offered by state and municipal institutions. This implies that Latvian municipalities more refer to electronic platform when offering services. However, first it is neccessary to raise awareness and interest of municipalities to accompany the process. From the users perspective there is a need for multilingual information provided on website to also achieve non- Latvian speakers and to keep structure and content given as simple as possible.
In Finland process modelling and workflow analyses bases on several negociations with representatives with cities of Sein?joki and Kauhava. However, where to implement egovernment solutions develeoped within project has not been finally decided.
Project Workshop in autum 2011 in Narva, Estonia
Project Workshop in March 2012 (place to be announced)
Further events:
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e-mail: post@pac.by
Phone: (+375 17) 226-37-45 
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