Bucharest, September 6, 2023 – The Prime Minister of Romania, Marcel Ciolacu, today had a series of meetings with representatives of some of the world’s largest technology companies.
The Minister of Research, Innovation and Digitization, Bogdan Ivan, and the Minister of Economy, Entrepreneurship and Tourism, Ștefan-Radu Oprea, participated in the meetings.
The Prime Minister received at the Victoria Palace the delegations of Apple, Amazon, and IBM, companies participating in the Business Forum of the 3 Seas Initiative organized by the Government of Romania on September 7, 2023.
The discussions focused on the opportunities for collaboration between our country and the three largest companies, with the aim of accelerating the digitization of the administrative system and speeding up the digital reform of public administration.
“The digital reform is the most important component of the administrative reform assumed by the Government. Romania and Romanians have been waiting for modern and more efficient public services for a long time. We can respond to this natural expectation by working together with experts and companies from the technology industry”, said Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu.
“Together with Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, I had a series of productive meetings with those in the management of some giants in the technology industry, such as IBM, Amazon, and Apple. As a minister, I have the duty to encourage investments and new technology programs in public administration. Today we sit at the table with industry leaders and collaborate, We are determined to take Romania to the forefront of technological innovation, to create a favorable environment for the development of the IT&C sector in our country, and to bring the public administration one click away from the citizens”, stated the Minister of Research, Innovation and Digitization, Bogdan Ivan.
Discussions with Apple representatives focused on issues related to the environment, cybersecurity, education and health.
The Apple delegation was led by Sebastien Gros, Director of Government Affairs Europe.
The discussions with the Apple representatives took place around the topics that the company approaches at the global level, with a focus on the environment and cybersecurity solutions. Two other key aspects of the meeting were the possibilities of collaboration for the digitization of education and innovations in the area of medical technology, two of the areas considered a priority by the Government of Romania.
Collaboration for cloud services, infrastructure investments and advanced research projects were topics of discussion with Amazon representatives.
The meeting between the Prime Minister of Romania, the Minister of Digitalization and the delegation of Amazon and Amazon Web Services (AWS) was focused on the possibilities of collaboration in strategic areas for digitalization. The transfer to the cloud of the central public administration and the development of research and innovation projects in areas such as artificial intelligence, data analysis and cyber security were just two of the directions of the discussion.
At the bilateral meeting, Amazon was represented by a delegation led by Michael Punke, the company’s vice president for global public policy.
In discussions with IBM representatives, Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu and Digitalization Minister Bogdan Ivan addressed topics such as the government cloud, cybersecurity solutions and the establishment of advanced research and development centers focused on cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) , cyber security and cloud computing.
IBM’s delegation to Victoria Palace was led by David Barnes, IBM’s vice president of global workforce policy.
The meetings at the Victoria Palace took place in the context of the presence in Bucharest of foreign delegations to participate in the Summit of the 3 Seas Initiative and the I3M Business Forum.
