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The quality of business environment
in Slovakia continues to worsen in the 2nd quarter of
2009
The Business Environment in Slovakia has
significantly worsened again. Current value of Business
Environment Index is 105.0 points, which represents
a decrease of 4.11% in comparison with the previous
period. It is the twelfth consecutive decrease and thereby
the largest decrease in the history of the index at
all. This perceived downgrade is a reflection of negative
impacts of crisis on business and insufficient government
activities against crisis and business barriers.
The biggest fall recorded the item "Efficiency
of state economy and access to state aid" which
dropped by 12.07 per cent to current value 46.3 points.
Entrepreneurs are disappointed with the performance
of government which still hasn't revalued expenditures
of state budget and hasn't implemented necessary radical
expenditure cuts in all resorts. The result of this
inactivity is a noticeable growth of state deficit and
subsequent consideration about increasing taxes, which
creates negative atmosphere and makes entrepreneurs
quite uncertain. Entrepreneurs are also embarrassed
with small transparency of business activities of state
and high level of corruption present in distribution
of EU funds.
According to entrepreneurs, the second
biggest disappointment was the item "Law enforcement,
judicial effectiveness". It decreased by 10.9%
to 36.5 points. Entrepreneurs complain about corruption,
insufficient competency and neutrality of judges. They
criticize also current changes and development in juridical
system.
The third largest decrease in comparison
with the previous quarter was assigned to the "Functionality
of political system in the country", with decrease
of 9.17% to current value 54.5 points. Negative evaluation
is caused by regulative interventions of government
and unpredictability of amendments to the law.
It is interesting that entrepreneurs are
openly speaking about decrease of efficiency, productivity
and profitability of their enterprises. They declare
declined ability to meet their liabilities as well as
their liquidity and cash flow. The ability of enterprises
to meet their visions and plans is diminished due to
the crisis.
Entrepreneurs assigned biggest increase
to the item "Stability and predictability of the
EUR exchange rate", that relates with implementation
of the euro in Slovakia at the beginning of this year
and currency stability acquired with this step. The
second highest increase achieved the item "Quality
and accessibility of primary inputs and labor force".
The rating rose up as a result of redundancy, which
increased the supply of free qualified workforce. High
increase in comparison with the previous quarter achieved
also item "Regulation of market entry/exit (licensing,
certificates, duties)".
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