Deputy Minister welcomes Cyprus' 'Digital Decade of Europe' progress

Deputy Minister of Research, Innovation and Digital Policy, Dr. Nicodemos Damianou has welcomed the results of the European Commission's 'State of the Digital Decade 2024' report, which noted Cyprus' significant progress.

As underlined in a Deputy Ministry announcement, Cyprus recorded significant progress in the annual report of the European Commission " State of the Digital Decade 2024 ", which evaluates the digital readiness of the EU member states and the progress towards the implementation of the goals of the Digital Decade 2030.

Regarding the results, the Deputy Minister of Research, Innovation and Digital Policy, Dr. Nicodemos Damianou, expressed his satisfaction with the fact that the country's digital ecosystem is developing at a steady pace and is taking steps in the right direction.

"The Government," said the Deputy Minister, "remains committed to the goal of the digital transition and the implementation of digital solutions with a direct impact on the daily life of the Cypriot citizen. The indicators of the Digital Decade are the road map on the basis of which we shape our strategy, so that we can achieve the ambitious goals that have been set at national and European level. We will proceed with an analysis of the individual indicators seriously and thoroughly, readjusting and aligning our actions to ensure that they meet the data, needs, goals and challenges before us."

Damianou's comments were part of a Deputy Ministry announcement that said, "Our country is on a steady upward trend in a number of indicators, with the highest increase recorded in terms of development of Gigabit connectivity infrastructure and the proportion of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) specialists in the labor market.

Specifically, Very High Capacity Network (VHCN) coverage reached 77.1% in 2023, marking an increase of 28.5% compared to last year, while Cyprus is expected to reach the 100% target by the end of 2025 , through state subsidization of the expansion of networks in areas outside of private interest. It is worth noting that Cyprus has already achieved 100% coverage in terms of 5G mobile networks , reaching the European target for 2030 seven years earlier."

The Deputy Ministry's announcement also pointed out that the results regarding the increase in the percentage of ICT specialists were also particularly encouraging, as this exceeded the European average of 4.8% and now stands at 5.4%.

"This is a vital axis for accelerating the digital transformation, as well as for the adoption of advanced key technologies for the development of innovative solutions to socio -economic and environmental challenges," the announcement said.

However, it also pointed out that upgrading the digital skills of the general population, as well as the further development of electronic health services, is still an important challenge.

In the dimension of digitization of government services, a key government priority, Cyprus shows an improvement of 16.3%, a rate that is several times higher than the 3.1% average growth rate in Europe, with more and more digital services are offered both to citizens and to local businesses, the announcement continued.

"Despite the fact that the majority of Cypriot SMEs are at a satisfactory level of digital maturity, the adoption rates of advanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence, are still relatively low. Encouraging, however, are the results regarding the use of cloud services by businesses, where Cyprus ranks above the European average (38.9%) with a rate of 45.5%," the Deputy Ministry's announcement said..