As Novac/Gojko Drljaca writes on the 2nd of November, 2019, the Republic of Croatia is in a critical period in which the country and companies in the IT sector should recognise the potential for developing 5G network infrastructure.
It is a mistake to view 5G infrastructure as another step in the development of mobile telephony that will allow for faster and more comfortable use of the Internet or, in turn, watching higher quality videos. 5G is so much more than that.
Most of the special reports prepared by analytics and consulting firms for policy makers of both countries and major corporations conclude that the introduction of 5G will accelerate global economic growth very significantly in assessing the impact of 5G networks.
The big question is whether or not we’re even actually aware here in Croatia that now is the right time to jump on the 5G train and accelerate the development of Croatia’s 5G infrastructure. More and more governments across the globe are beginning to make decisions based on expert materials that tell them 5G is one of the cornerstones of future growth.
Far, far away in Australia, for example, they are convinced that 5G alone will raise their GDP per capita by 1300 dollars to 2000 dollars in the very first decade of its implementation. Imagine how much of a jump Croatia’s general well-being would take if such a thing happened here.
5G provides data traffic speeds equal to those provided by fiber optic cables today. It is said that the Slavonian city of Osijek will, for example, be the first Croatian 5G city. Improving the speed of cable-free communication is in itself a major leap forward, which, according to experts, should be used primarily by inventive Croatian IT companies, of which there are many.
It can be believed that this is possible because the statistical indicators of the Croatian IT industry are very robust, although the state has not paid much attention to them at all, which isn’t much of a surprise.
Between 2008 and 2018, the number of IT employees grew by 45 percent (from 26,970 to 39,062), exports grew by 90 percent (from 4.4 billion to 8.8 billion) and revenues grew by 28.8 percent (from 29.9 billion to 38.3 billion). It should be borne in mind that the domestic IT industry has, over the same period, driven a whole host of traditional industries forward.
The IT industry has grown much faster than the pharmaceutical and metal industries, electrical equipment manufacturing, machinery and equipment manufacturing, and even furniture manufacturing.
Even the food industry could not follow it in terms of total growth. The IT industry has slowly and dramatically changed the relations of the sectoral forces in Croatia, even when it comes to exports: in the same observed period, only the metal industry outperformed the aforementioned sectors.
In terms of total revenues from the observed industries, nobody is ”bigger” or more important than the IT industry, and in terms of the number of employees, it is increasingly approaching the level of the food industry. On top of that, it has quite rapidly overtaken everyone else.
The key question now is how much additional momentum can be gained by Croatia’s IT industry thanks to the rapid development of 5G infrastructure, or will it simply miss that train, as it has so many others? Time will tell.
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