A recent addition to "dot am" portals, Gateway hopes to live up to its name.

Another Internet portal has joined the growing number of "dot am" services providing links of Armenian interests.

Armenia Development Gateway (www.gateway.am) is the latest, offering web surfing answers about Armenia, presented in English and Armenian.

Electronic Armenia Foundation executive director and overseer of the portal Levon Galstyan says the portal is meant to be "an at-hand key tool" to find information about Armenia.

Armenia Development Gateway project began in 2000 with mutual efforts of the Government of Armenia, the World Bank and United Nations Development Program. As a result it was decided to create the web site, to provide the business world with information on opportunities in Armenia. Electronic Armenia grew out of the Gateway project's collaboration of 16 organizations and businessmen. Its original goal was to promote electronic development.

But as Gateway developed, so did its ideas about the website.

"Further progress showed that it shouldn't be limited only to this extent and it's not enough only to solve information problems," says Galstyan. "We decided to create a portal, which must have become not only the source of information about opportunities in Armenia but also such a source of information, where it would become possible to find addresses of Armenian organization, which our visitors are interested in."

Approximately 860 organizations are represented on the web site, which is divided into five main divisions: government, society, private, international and Diaspora. The portal also has divisions on tourism and recreation.

Synergy International Systems provides the portal's technological support and its partners include Armenian Encyclopedia, E-Armenian Foundation and ARKA news agency.

ARKA news agency has a monthly bulletin BIT@E, where information on Armenian and international information technology markets is presented.

The Gateway portal grew out of an international initiative. Development Gateway Foundation has implemented such projects in 43 countries and gave the local members a $78,000 grant to establish gateway.am.

"This version of the portal is not a new thing in the world," says Galstyan. "Such portals have almost the same information core as a gateway for any country. However, each country has its own development trend, which creates additional divisions in the portal."