Three out of ten households in Romania had internet access, during the first quarter

Romania held the penultimate position in the European Union (EU) according to the extent of Internet access of the population for the first quarter, with only 30% of the Romanian households having an Internet connection, which means half of the European Community average for internet access, according to data published yesterday by Eurostat. Only 13% percent of the Romanian households had high-speed broadband Internet access.

Romanians stated that they used the Internet to read news online (14%), to find health information (11%) and to interact with the state authorities (9%). Just 2% of the Romanian respondents in the study made by the European statistics office said they were interested in Internet banking.

For the first three months of this year, Bulgarians had the lowest rate of Internet access (only 25% of the households). On the opposite end were Holland and Sweden, where 86%, and 84% of the households, respectively had an Internet connection, most of them broadband.

In the EU, 60% of the population had Internet access in the January - March period, up from 54% during last year"s first quarter, while 48% has a broadband connection as against 42% in 2007.

About one third (32%) of the EU citizens stated that during the first quarter they used the Internet to find travel information, and almost 30% for internet banking, interacting with public authorities and to find health information. One quarter read online press, or ordered goods on services on the Internet, and 15% looked for jobs or applied for jobs online.

The survey data covers the first three months of 2008, for all the member states, with the respondents" age ranging between 16 and 74 years old.