The proportion of businesses in Romania using cloud technology must significantly increase by 62 percent points in order to meet the Digital Decade goals set out by the European Commission, according to a new report produced by Deloitte and commissioned by Vodafone. The EU’s Digital Decade, which sets key targets on different digital areas until 2030, is the EU’s vision for Europe’s digital transformation and a critical element in Europe maintaining its global competitiveness in a rapidly changing world.

According to the report, only 13 percent share of businesses in Romania currently use cloud computing services, which is 62 percent points short of the 75 percent target by 2030. Cloud services can help increase data security, drive efficiencies, help companies scale, yield insights and reduce costs for businesses, meaning they are critical to their overall success, ability to grow and support Europe’s overall competitiveness.

It is not only EU companies falling short on targets. Overall, the proportion of households covered by very high-capacity networks in Romania is 76 percent in 2021 meaning a gap of 24 percent still exists. Plugging this gap could prove challenging to most, if not all Member States, due to the high costs and operational challenges in deploying these networks in remote areas.

A lack of ICT specialists is also inhibiting progress against the Digital Decade targets, jeopardising Europe’s ability to scale up technologies required to lead globally. Across the EU27, the number of ICT specialists currently stands at 8.43 million. While this number has increased the most in Germany, Ireland and Hungary over the past year, across the EU as a whole this figure needs to more than double in order to meet the 20 million ICT specialists Digital Decade goal.