The Romanian software and IT services industry is centred on Bucharest, where more than 60% of the total turnover is made, while Vaslui County is at the bottom of the list, with only 27 people employed in the IT sector, a survey by the National Association of Software and Services Industry (ANIS) shows.
The survey was based on data collected from financial statements from IT companies in 2003, data from the National Statistics Institute and data from ANIS members themselves. Romania is suffering from the "software divide" phenomenon, ANIS officials said, paraphrasing the expression "digital divide", which is used to describe the technological development gaps between nations.
As a comparison, while the top ten counties (including Bucharest) account for 87% of the total turnover in the software and services industry and 81% of total employees, the last ten enjoy only 1% and 2% respectively. A good picture of the "software divide" can be obtained by relating the industry figures to the population (the industry penetration).
As a result, every inhabitant of Bucharest gets 216 dollars (191 euros at the exchange rate for 2003) of the total turnover, while 5 out 1,000 inhabitants are employed in the software and services industry. Similar figures in Ialomita, Teleorman and Vaslui show 1-2 dollars per inhabitant and 0.1 employees out of 1,000 people. |
