North-Press Agency
Romat Mohammed
The world is witnessing major economic transformations, as globalization and the technological revolution have caused wide openness to the markets, speed in economic performance, overlap among the economic actors and digitizing public life. This matter contributed in the emergence of the digital economy as it is an integrated and coherent space between the organized economy based on natural, human and financial resources on the one hand, and communication and information technology which is based on knowledge and information on the other hand.
There is an urgent need to move from the stage of the traditional economy to the stage of economy based on knowledge and innovation, without which modern economies, whether in developed or developing countries, cannot grow or develop, especially in light of the broad economic openness and high competition among countries.
It is worth noting that the size of the global digital economy is equal to three trillion dollars today. What is impressive is the fact that this entire value has been generated in the past twenty years since the launch of the Internet.
Definition:
There is no unified definition of the digital economy, it is also referred to as the new economy or the Internet economy. But the digital economy can be defined as: the economy which includes all economic activities that use information and digital knowledge.
Ingredients and requirements for digitizing the economy:
The process of digitizing the economy requires many and huge ingredients, and there is a necessity that these ingredients have to be comprehensive and complementary at the state level and in all sectors, otherwise the digitization process will be limited and not comprehensive, but these ingredients are mostly not available in Syria at the present time, and they are:
– Setting a strategy for the electronic transformation and providing the infrastructure, starting with equipment, technology, telecommunications devices, the Internet, digital service providers, information and knowledge management systems, promoting scientific research and development and developing smart cities.
– The availability of cadres as mathematicians programmers and specialists in the field of basic research, developing artificial intelligence systems, workers in the field of knowledge and information technology.
– Governmental policies aimed at keeping pace with technological and technical developments in the world.
– Creating legislations and regulating laws; e-commerce laws, intellectual property rights laws, laws on protection in the information space and protecting information security.
– Creating the country's financial, customs and banking system in line with the requirements of the digital economy.
– Providing the necessary and sustainable financing.
– Electronic connectivity among the various relevant economic sectors.
– Investing in a number of projects related to communications and information technology within the public sector to improve the management of public services.
– Developing incentives to attract investments in the ICT sector.
Digital economy's benefits:
The digitization of the economy brings many benefits as it is a development process to employ communications and information technology in the traditional economy in a manner that increases efficiency and effectiveness, these include:
– Digital knowledge itself is an important economic resource globally.
– Digitization creates profound changes in economic regulation, redefines value chains and blurs the boundaries between the production of goods and services. Digitization can facilitate the implementation of the sustainable development plan, but only in terms of adopting proactive policies to build productive capacities suited to the new digital economy.
– It contributes to reorganizing the economic structures to allow for massive increases in productivity, creates more channels for distribution and encourages the production of goods and services, in addition to opening new huge markets as is the case in the fields of money, business and electronic markets.
– Helping institutions in the state in linking with the global markets more easily, in addition to contributing to the marketing of products and services all over the world, which is reflected in the growing competition, productivity and innovation.
– Providing government services through modern means of informatics and communications, such as the Internet and the cell phone, which means that there is no need to go to the government departments, which contributes to reducing bureaucracy, routine, bribery, favoritism and overcrowding.
– Reducing traffic pressure in the capital and the main cities where most transactions are poured in, as it contributes to reducing fuel and electricity consumption, and in saving the time for the citizens and employees.
Obstacles to digitizing the Syrian economy:
There are many obstacles facing the digitization of the Syrian economy, perhaps the most important of them are:
– A major weakness in the infrastructure for electronic services, weak cadres and specializations, the absence of its legislations, the spread of bureaucracy and routine in most government institutions, the absence of integration among complex government records, and the inability of the state to fund such huge projects under the current war conditions.
– The administrative and governmental structure in Syria hasn't reached the stage of e-government yet, not even the automation of some governmental departments.
Automating the central bank for example, which was the first modest government step towards automation and digitization which began 10 years ago, hasn't achieved any success yet.
– Digital reality at the governmental level in Syria is far from digitization in its practical sense. Electronic publishing is in the medium form, electronic interaction is in a weak form, and electronic contracting, which is more important, is non-existent.
Prospects of digitizing the Syrian economy:
digitizing the economy in general is a gradual process, even for the developed countries, how then, in the case of Syria, which suffers from the conditions of war and its consequences, which has overwhelmed the economy to a large extent and destroyed the infrastructure.
(According to UN reports, the unemployment rate has increased to 87%, there are about 9 million unemployed Syrians, while prices have increased in general between 2011 and 2019 for about 14 times, and the Syrian economy has lost $226 billion of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is equivalent to four times of the GDP in 2010, in addition to the destruction of 7% of housing, buildings and public utilities totally and 20% partly).
Therefore, in light of its current conditions and capabilities, the Syrian state cannot take such a step towards digitizing the economy without full dependence on another state as in the call made by the Syrian president for Russia to digitize the Syrian economy, this matter, and even if Russia agreed to achieve it, cannot be done and succeed under the country's current conditions, but only simple and fragmented.