Citizens and the business sector have a free access to open data without any technical or legal limitations at website www.otvorenipodatoci.gov.mk, which Minister of Information Society and Administration Ivo Ivanovski promoted on Wednesday.

The project aims at providing increased transparency in institutional operations, efficiency of the administration, and re-use of data for economic development.

"EU's experience with open data shows fantastic economic parameters, which through data re-use reach up to EUR 60 billion in 2013. We expect the private sector in Macedonia to use this opportunity in using the data and create combined data sets, so that citizens can use them afterwards, whereas the private sector could generate revenues", said Ivanovski.

According to him, citizens would not have to submit forms to institutions in order to obtain data in compliance with the Law on Access to Public Information, but go directly to the website.

The project encompasses 82 data sets from 11 institutions: Agency for Real Estate Cadastre, Agency for Electronic Communications, Agency for Financial Support of Agriculture and Rural Development, Ministry of Environment and Physical Planning, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Economy, Labor Inspectorate, Agriculture Inspectorate, Market Inspectorate, Sanitary Inspectorate, and Administrative Inspectorate.

The new platform is expected to include 110 data sets from 21 institutions.

"The number of institutions and data sets is expected to rise in the coming period, in order to create new services, contents and applications, i.e. use the innovation potential of open data", stressed Ivanovski.