The availability of public services on the Internet continued its significant increase last year, with citizens having access to more than 46% of public services and business entities having access to more than 60% of public services, the manager of this project at the T&MC company, Dunja Djurica, said.
She recalled that in 2004 citizens had access to only slightly more than three percent of public services, while business entities had access to six percent.
Over the last three years Croatia has made efforts to catch up with EU countries, where the average on-line availability of public services is around 75%, Deputy State Secretary for e-Croatia Diana Simic said.
The survey, conducted by the consulting agency T&MC in September last year, covered 1,200 bodies of public authorities and 651 web sites and evaluated.
The analysis covered 20 areas concerning services for citizens and eight areas concerning business entities. They were evaluated according to four levels of computerisation - information on services only, one-way interaction (downloading files from the Internet), two-way communication (filling out electronic forms), and full availability of a service.
The best services are provided by some 15 web sites, including the Tax Authority, the "Nikola Zrinski" library from Cakovec, the Pension Insurance Agency, and the e-Pension service.
The frequency of the use of on-line services was not determined exactly, but Simic said that more than 90% of business entities and more than 40% of citizens were using the Internet.