Zagreb , 21/10/2006

The contract between the Republic of Croatia and the City of Zagreb on establishing the Information Systems and Information Technology Support Agency APIS-IT was signed today in Zagreb at the Dverce Palace. The contract was signed by Prime Minister Ivo Sanader and City Mayor Milan Bandic.  Miroslav Kovacic, State Secretary of the Central State Office for e-Croatia and Martina Dalic, State Secretary of the Central State Office for Development Strategy were present at the endorsement.


After initial operations of HITRO.HR and opening of public information services such as electronic land registries, the opening of the Agency represents the third successful step towards a complete informatisation of administration suited to the needs of citizens and business entities.  APIS–IT came about as a redirection of the City Bureau for Automatic Data Processing. The redirection itself enables the implementation of planned tasks within the e-Croatia 2007 programme and provides additional human resources and infrastructure assistance for a higher quality implementation of the HITRO.HR project.  By uniting forces and by compiling the highest quality technological bases and IT experts, the Republic of Croatia and the City of Zagreb will acquire new infrastructure which meets the level of such systems in countries of the European Union.

Prime Minister Sanader mentioned that the formation of APIS IT is the first in line of projects realized through cooperation between him and the city mayor.  “For us, politics is serving the people”, said Prime Minister Sanader adding that they are connected by the desire to make administration serve citizens, while political differences are push aside when discussing the general wellbeing.  “We work, and we leave it up to others to comment on our cooperation”, said Prime Minister Sanader. Sanader also mentioned that the Government will be the majority stakeholder in the Agency in the 51 to 29 ratio, but pointed out that all decisions will be made on consensus.  The Agency will be led by a three member board, for which there are several candidates, and Sanader expressed conviction that they will be as busy as bees – considering that the name of the agency APIS is the Latin word meaning “bee”.

The mayor of Zagreb pointed out that the mutual goal of the City of Zagreb and the Republic of Croatia which is development of modern administration will be realized through a partnership at the state and local level. Futhermore, he stressed that informatisation is only one example of how to prepare for joining the European Union. 

Large systems of public administration contain large data groups and information. For fast and efficient data analysis, extremely complex and expensive technology is required. The City of Zagreb and the Republic of Croatia are uniting resources with the aim to make the application of information technology more efficient and cost-effective. As in the majority of other countries this has been done through creating a strong subject which unites technology, staff and information solutions for the needs of public administration and the local administration.   Based on the experiences of the Bureau, the establishment of the Agency becomes a natural sequence in uniting administrative services at the state and local level. The Bureau has been creating information solutions for government administration through information assistance in the tax and customs system of the Republic of Croatia, as well as providing information support during election times. APIS IT as the successor of the Bureau will have at its disposal significant technical, programme and human resource potential (business facility, computer, communication, programme and application software) and great experience in information support of most complex systems of the city and state. This will bring about new possibilities for uniting information systems in particular parts of the state and local administration.

In the future, the Agency will take over duties and responsibilities of the Bureau and conduct business that must be separated into operations relating to the development of services, applications, content, technical and technological support, operations of technical and technological support and other commercial operations.  Among other things, this includes the development of plans for informatisation in cooperation with the Central State Administration Office for e-Croatia, bodies of state administration and local administration; development and establishment of information systems as well as the application of the bodies of state administration and the City of Zagreb; providing information support to central and unified registries; participation in the development and establishment of e-government web portals of the Republic of Croatia and the web portal for the City of Zagreb as well as the development of e-services for all users and providing such professional services for establishing interoperability of applications and services.