Bulgaria ranks among the first in the world when speed and quality of cheap internet access is concerned. At the same time, statistics show that this technological achievement of the modern world, without which life and business today are unthinkable, remains inaccessible to 33% of Bulgarians, while just 10% of companies in the country use the World Wide Web to sell their goods.

This substantial gap in comparison to developed Western countries is caused not only by economic conditions, but is largely due to cultural reasons and a low level of education - 68% of Bulgarians are computer illiterates. But in the end it still comes down to money and more precisely to their quantity. This is so because education and cultural interests and activities are too expensive for people who receive the minimum wage of 210 euros a month. What should be the priorities when spending the miserable money - food, electricity, medicine or internet access and computers!? Naturally web technologies are placed at the bottom of the priority chart of many Bulgarians. This phenomenon is especially characteristic of the poorest areas in the country - in its northern part, where industry and any other business are almost non-existent. A study shows that it is in northwestern Bulgaria where the lowest number of households use the Internet. Some 58.6 percent of families in the region have access to the web. Regarding education as a factor influencing computer literacy and Internet surfing, it is known that 90% of people with a university diploma are active internet users. Unfortunately they are just 1/4 of the Bulgarian population.

Internet except for entertainment these days is increasingly becoming a business tool. 60% of Europeans make at least one purchase over the Internet each month. Therefore, the business can not remain indifferent to such a powerful marketing tool. In this regard, Bulgaria is lagging behind - below 10% of companies in the country have online stores and offer online sales. There are economic reasons behind this fact, too. Over 70% of companies in the country are SMEs for which investment in computers and appropriate software is often an impossible mission, and sometimes unnecessary in view of limited area of operation.

But the most tragic of all is perhaps the fatal delay and constant postponements of the introduction of electronic public administration in this country. Some time ago there was even a special ministry for this purpose, which spent hundreds of millions of European money without anyone knowing the exact results and if they were beneficial for the citizens.

At this backdrop, however, figures showing that new technologies are slowly but surely becoming of greater importance to Bulgarian society, sound comforting.

English: Al. Markov