Post-Soviet countries: the journey from resource-driven economies to knowledge based-economies. Focus on ICT sector

After the dissolution of USSR the Soviet republics' economies were resource-driven, but only few of them were rich in highly tradable natural resources. They were Russia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. These countries had registered an important economic growth due to natural resources exports, but became prisoners of the so called "Dutch disease". Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Belarus or Baltic States hadn't any highly tradable natural resources such as oil or gas and had to focus on developing other sectors of economy and have set as a priority the development of ICT sector. The purpose of my study was to find out who has performed better in developing the ICT sector from exSoviet republics, what is the correlation between the ICT sector development and the abundance in natural resources. Will the thesis that countries rich in natural resources are less open to knowledge and innovation be confirmed?