PORTUGAL'S GOVT SERVICES ON LINE
Portugal has come from nowhere to set the trend for the rest of Europe to follow. The country has sky-rocketed seven places up the 2007 e-government rankings and is now the third best European Union state when it comes to providing online services at both the citizen and business level. The study, presented on Thursday afternoon, shows that Portugal has successively climbed the rankings since they were first released in 2000 and the country has now clearly become an example to its fellow 26 EU member states of how to make rapid progress in this department.
Portugal is now officially one of the most sophisticated countries in terms of e-government as efforts by the Lisbon hierarchy in recent years start reaping dividends.
The study was conducted by consulting company Capgemini on behalf of the European Commission and consists of two separate rankings; one on the availability of online services and the other comparing the sophistication of these services.
Portugal has, since June 2006 when the last such study was published, climbed seven places to third in terms of availability and jumped six places to fourth when referring to the sophistication of e-government.
The list, in terms of availability, is topped by Austria followed by Malta.
Looking back at previous years, Portugal's progress is even more striking.
In 2005, the country was rated 14th, meaning that in the space of just two years, Portugal has im proved its rating by 11 places.
The level of availability and sophistication of on-line services directed at companies, the survey says, are both rated at 100 percent, values which are 29 and 16 points above the EU average, respectively. While this figure falls to 75 percent at citizen level, it remains 25 percent above the community average.
The news of Portugal's strong showing came as 36 countries gathered in Lisbon for a conference on e-Government.
The Portugal News