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EU accession presents significant opportunities for ICT-savvy Romania
By Sergio Giacoletto, Executive Vice President, Oracle Europe, Middle East and Africa.
Romania's accession to the European Union on 1st January 2007 will boost ICT skills levels in the EU and open up significant inward investment opportunities and economic growth potential for the new Member State.
The country has invested wisely in its people in recent years, resulting in a highly IT-literate work force and a concentration of specialist IT skills to rival those of the world's most advanced technology centers. Combined with the population's language skills - many Romanians speak a combination of English, German, French and Italian in addition to their mother tongue - Romania's skills portfolio sets it in good stead for participating in and advancing the European Union's vision for an innovative knowledge-based economy and a beneficial information society.
Oracle has long seen the promise of Romania, establishing a permanent presence there in 1996 with seven consultants. Since then, the company has expanded its Romanian operations to employ 800 people, and, according to the
Romanian Business Resource web site, is the largest software-sector employer in the country. Its skilled consultants have helped many Romanian organizations to modernize and advance through the adoption of leading-edge technology. In 1997, for example, the national railway operator CFR became the first Romanian company to adopt Oracle's integrated suite of applications, setting a standard for streamlined, information-driven business.
Oracle has since become a strategic technology and applications supplier to the Romanian government, helping it to deliver better service to citizens and businesses, and to collaborate more effectively with other countries. Oracle software is also relied upon by major corporations including Romtelecom, the Banca Comerciala Romana and chemicals manufacturer Oltchim. A thriving ecosystem of home-grown business partner companies has grown up around Oracle Romania, providing integration and implementation services for Oracle software and complementary software products that work alongside Oracle's own, creating jobs and growing the national economy in the process.
Oracle's Romanian operations not only support the local market for enterprise software, but also service Oracle customers across the globe from an international technical support cente in Bucharest.
The Romanian capital was chosen because of the advanced IT skills to be found in the country, a testament to the emphasis placed by Romania's government on providing a high standard of technical education. Oracle is proud to be helping to develop these skills in partnership with the Romanian government. As part of its mission to deliver tangible benefits to society, Oracle has helped to deliver IT skills training to 8,000 Romanian school and university students through its Academic Initiative. This year, Oracle will sponsor five brilliant PhD students at the Polytechnic University of Bucharest.
The standard of IT expertise in the country is nowhere better demonstrated than by Oracle's annual Global Data Modeling Contest, in which students from around the world converge on the University of California in Los Angeles to demonstrate IT innovations they have developed. Not only have young Romanians won the first prize in every year since 2004, but in 2006, Romanian high-school students swept the board, carrying off the top six prizes.
Its impressive IT and language skills, together with its fertile economy, will set Romania in good stead for its accession to the European Union. Romania must continue to offer an environment in which innovation, entrepreneurship, collaboration and inward investment can flourish. This will not only ensure that it makes a valuable contribution to the economic growth and prosperity of the EU and continues to raise the standard of living for its own citizens, but also that it will be able to compete effectively against emerging economies in other parts of the world.
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