Upcoming Trade Shows in Portugal for Internet

Expanding digital public services and broadband connectivity are the two main priorities for Portugal’s Internet services industry as the government seeks to catch up to its fellow European market leaders, the UK and Germany. Step one - enhance the digital infrastructure and improve accessibility to essential services for citizens and businesses alike. Progress has been made, but the road presents some challenges still, particularly in the areas of bridging the digital skills gap and achieving full alignment with European Union (EU) standards. According to the 2022 Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), Portugal ranks 14th among EU member states for digital public services. E-government usage has seen steady growth as it rose by 5% between 2019 and 2021 to a total of 59%, but that’s still far behind the 65% EU average. Still this increase demonstrates that initiatives like the Digital Transformation Strategy for Public Administration (SDTPA) and the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) are working as both initiatives have successfully sped the process of digitising public services and streamlining interactions between the government, citizens, and businesses. Portugal’s Internet services industry also benefits from several open data initiatives, though their rollout is considerably slower compared to other EU nations. The country scored 66% in open data readiness, far beneath the EU average of 81%. Despite this, Portugal has made over 95% of its essential public services available online, using the Interoperability Platform (iAP) to provide integrated services. To enhance its digital governance framework, Portugal has adopted a cloud-first strategy and introduced a single digital gateway, which has made access to public services easier than ever before. As positive as the results may have been this far, we can’t ignore the issues concerning the digital skills gap. Many citizens, particularly adults unfamiliar with the Internet, struggle to make full use of these services.