Another important guest at this year's Invex was Jan Mlßdek, government deputy vice-chairman for economic affairs. His press conference was devoted to the topic "information technology and the support of enterprise".

In his introduction to the press conference Jan Mlßdek emphasised that "the new government considers information technology as an essential condition for the growth of the economy of this country. IT provides an opportunity for revival for a number of reasons, particularly for the opportunity it provides for Internet connection for small and medium-sized enterprises, for which it does not represent a particularly large cost. The opportunities it provides are seen as of crucial importance for the future. The Internet can also eleviate the position in which these companies find themselves. At the present time it is no problem for large companies to find out information on the companies with which they do business. For small companies, however, the chance of being able to find out information on their business partners over the Internet is extremely important. I applaud the pioneer act taken by ex-Minister of Justice Vlasta Parkanovß, when she had the Commercial Register put onto the Internet. This, at first, met with great criticism and a lack of understanding. It is now taken for granted. We would like to follow up from here, and to make life easier for the entrepreneurs in this country.

Of course the Czech parliament must first pass a law on the protection of personal information. This should be put forward by the end of next year. In the future we expect the publication of, for example, the real estate and land register or details on all those who have received subsidies.

The last, though most important, matter is the State Information System, in which the key problem is to resolve co-ordination between the individual ministries. No small amount of money has been invested in the databases at individual ministries, though, unfortunately, they are not all compatible. The accessibility to other ministries to the individual databases must be ensured, and this is, of course, in the hands of yet other ministries. The creation of the State Information System is, in essence, a never-ending process, going on continually, though, of course, dependent of the available finances.