Spain

Spain, an ICT leader country
With an area of more than 500,000 km², and almost 47 million of population, Spain is the second largest country in Western Europe and the European Union. Spain has a long history in the world, in the last decades it has been famous worldwide for its tourism based economy. In fact, Spain is still the third most visited country of the world, having received more tourists per year than Spanish population. But there are other new features from Spain, which are currently worldwide leaders apart from tourism. Renewable energy, ehealth and electronic ID are just prompt examples where Spain stands out more than others.

Coming to the ICTs, these have impacted the Spanish society as a whole. The results are remarkable: More than 25 million of Internet users, transition to the Digital Terrestrial TV has been done two years in advance as the EU deadline (since the 4th of April 2010, 100% DTT coverage). With more than 97% of the public services available online, Spain holds the 9th position according to the UN worldwide eGovernment survey and the third position on the UN eParticipation worldwide survey.

All these good results have been achieved mainly thanks to the big effort that the Spanish Government has been doing in the last years. More than 8000 million of Euros have been mobilized within the last 5 years thanks to Plan Avanza, the strategic ICT initiative designed to place Spain on a top position within the Information and Knowledge Society. This plan has helped improve its economic productivity, generalized access to the new technologies and the general welfare of all Spanish citizens.

Spain has been deeply involved as co-organizer of the WCIT, due to his temporary position holding the presidency of the European Union. High level Spanish government officers will be speakers along the WCIT sessions (in particular the in Plenary session, energy and eGovernment sessions). Moreover, there will be a big Spanish country pavilion. This pavilion includes interesting ICT Spanish information and brand new videos about Spain and the ICT sector.