With a view of providing support from the state to socially vulnerable sections of population and in order to assimilate new technologies in Belarus, the President of the Republic of Belarus issued Decree No 134 of February 5, 1997, which approves the following list of presidential programmes:

“Children of Belarus” (subprogrammes: “Chernobyl Children,” “Handicapped Children,” “Orphaned Children,” “Development of Children’s Food Industry,” “Development of Social Services to Families and Children”);

“Housing;”

“Support from the state for individual housing construction;”

“Consumer electronics” (subprogrammes “Belarusian TV-Set,” and “Computerization of the Population”);

“Informatization” (subprogrammes “Elaboration of the Management Concepts for the National Information Resources;” “Elaboration of the Computer Network and Database for the Supreme Bodies of State Administration”).