"The purpose of the visit is to share experience and speak about potential partnership in the sphere of government solutions," Deputy Minister of Economic Development, David Tsiklauri, told the paper.
The deputy minister noted that while there are ongoing projects on the creation of e-government in the ministry of finance and justice ministry, the country is ready to gain the experience of a country which is far ahead in these processes.
"They are helping us to see how it works, and if they are interested there could be some discussion of how they can help," he said.
"This is a very important visit for Latvia. Firstly it is one more large step in mutual cooperation of Europe and potential EU countries, countries which are seriously developing democracy, liberalizing market, and for those countries which are seriously considering joining NATO and joint European markets," Gudele said.
She explains that Georgia, together with Moldova, is one of the priority countries for Latvia for cooperation, including in the economic and tourist sectors.
"Latvians are interested visiting the Georgian mountains in winter, and I think Georgians with pleasure will visit the not so warm, but very beautiful, sandy places in the Baltic countries," she said.
Gudele said that Georgia and Latvia should learn from each other's mistakes.
"Our countries currently are at a very fast pace of development, and with cooperation between countries, sharing experience, we can make this development more interesting and more fruitful. Every country on the path of development makes certain mistakes, and the fact is that we can help each other, we can learn from each other's mistakes," she said.
"The newest technologies and innovations are tightly linked to the development of industry, they are needed in all areas of industry, in agriculture, education, in all spheres of the economy," Gudele said.
While Latvia has huge experience in IT and communications, Gudele said her country also wants to learn from Georgia.
"We understood in our meetings that a lot has been done in Georgia as well, Georgia is making large steps ahead in e-government," she said.
Autor(en)/Author(s): Christina Tashkevich
Quelle/Source: The Messenger, 13.10.2006