Technology decisions cannot take years

Sir,
I have been reading articles during the past few years about the setting up a technology park in Cyprus and I would like to make some comments. I read on Tuesday an article that the set-up of the Technology park is getting closer and that it will be similar to the one in Sofia Antipolis in France.

The first thing to point out is the ultra-slow pace of the government when dealing with something new, such as a technology park or building marinas around Cyprus. The government people have not realised how competitive today’s economies are and that they are years behind the competition.

Take the marinas example, where Turkey has rapidly expanded in this area and while a decision was taken by minister Rolandis to expand in that sector few years ago, we still do not have marinas operating around Cyprus. I am not an expert in marinas or tourism but I know a thing or two about technology and particularly information technology since this is my field of work. We are trying to copy the Sofia Antipolis technology park that was setup in a country considerably larger than Cyprus with high technology industry already in place, and I am not sure if this is the right thing to do.

If this technology park that is aimed for research is set up, what companies will move their R&D there and where are they going to find resources to employ? I firmly believe that Cyprus should have copied the Dubai Internet and Media cities that provide an efficient and tax free infrastructure for technology and infrastructure companies to operate from. We barely have any infrastructure that will attract research besides light industry and one state university and therefore why should a company build an R&D center in Cyprus? However, we do have a decent services sector put in place for the offshore companies. Therefore why not expand it the way Dubai did? Dubai Internet City (DIC) hosts the Middle East headquarters of all the major Fortune 500 technology firms plus local technology companies that are being created such as I-mate that makes PC-Phones. DIC was build around 1998 and is now thriving and expanding.

Here is the Cyprus government in 2004 still thinking, researching, contemplating whether a technology park should be build and you know that it will be 2008 before they break ground, if they make a decision that is. In the meantime, the government officers are driven around in expensive luxury cars as if they are Chief Executives of large corporation and take four years to make a decision that is taken in the private sector within a few months. We did really relatively good in the late 80s and early 90s with the offshore companies but that was it, time is running out for us to become more competitive and flexible.

George Petrides,
Managing Director, Parallon Systems (EMEA), Ltd.
A Hewlett-Packard Global Integration Partner

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