20/03/2012
http://prensa.fundacionfaes.org/2012/MARZO/FAES+GOOGLE2-CURTO-MARIN-CALVO+SOTELO-20-03-2012.JPG! Curto: "Internet provides SMEs with possibilities that were only available to big companies before" Mar?n calculated that the Internet's direct impact on Spanish economy is of 23.7 billion euros Madrid, 20.03.12.- Spain's Deputy Minister for telecommunications and Information Society, V?ctor Calvo-Sotelo, participated in the conference organised by FAES and Google 'The Impact of the Internet on Economy', where he stressed that "The Government looks optimistically to new technologies as engines of progress and as a basic lever to get out of the crisis". Calvo-Sotelo insisted that the measures to be implemented by the Administration with regard to this issue will be twofold: a reduced budget setting and a more mature internet market. Calvo-Sotelo also commented on the enforcement of the Entrepreneurs Act which, he trusts, will supply SMEs with capital and facilitate procedures. It should also help improve entrepreneurs' social perception, the Deputy Minister added, and regretted that the critical importance of entrepreneurs could maybe partly explain Europe's delay before the United States regarding information society companies. The species that should be protected is people who risk their money to create employment, he remarked. Amongst the measures that the Deputy Ministry wishes to implement, Calvo-Sotelo mentions a credit scheme to support projects, to help Spanish companies internationalise and to make the Public Administration become a smart and daring client of new technologies companies. Furthermore, Calvo-Sotelo pointed out that they want to develop new types of agreements where private companies would devote capital to projects' initial investment, given the Administration's inability to do so. That capital would be financed along several years with the economies resulting from those services, the Deputy Minister explained, who also said that, ultimately, What the Government does is not what matters, but rather what we can do to help others do things". RETHINKING PUBLIC POLICIES Also participating in the conference was Fabien Curto, senior economist at Google for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, who offered his visions on the internet's impact on economy and public policies. Internet provides SMEs with possibilities that were only available to big companies ten or fifteen years ago", Curto declared, who considered this of particular importance given that67% of the EU's employment lies on SMEs. In his opinion, we are witnessing an outburst of data availability. With regard to this, Curto stated that opportunities exist, and they carry with them challenges for us to explore and rethink public policies. At the conference, FAES' Director of Economy and Public Policies, Miguel Mar?n, calculated that the Internet's direct impact on Spanish economy is of 23.7 billion euros, which could be tripled by 2015, he declared. Therefore, he added internet is no petty matter: Spain faces a very complicated situation where, on top of the necessities of stabilisation in the short term, we would need to find those levers for the future that could enable us to increase our growth potential in the long term, without imbalances and generating quality jobs.