Moscow, 2 September 2011

(by Ton Zijlstra)

Ivan Begtin blogs about promising signs that a Russian open government data policy is forming. He quotes several government documents that contain hints to what is to come in 2012.

Some of those quotes are (machine translated):

"It's important for the economic development of Russia that public data is published in machine readable form, so they can be re-used for other purposes and services relevant to society"

"Therefore the Ministry of Economic Development thinks it necessary to further develop the topic of public sector information, en intends to hold a series of events in 2012 as part of the Information Society 2011-2020 program."

"The Ministery for Economic Development and the Ministery for Communications will jointly explore and propose new demands by December 2011 to give free access to PSI, in reusable formats, to encourage the creation of new internet services to the benefit of society."

These seem encouraging signs that opening up government data for re-use is now on the agenda at Ministerial level, and may lead to tangible steps in 2012.