BRATISLAVA, December 13, (WEBNOVINY) — The business environment in Slovakia is stable, says the Economy Ministry. “In the area of the business environment, it is generally possible to state that it is stable in spite of the fact that in the World Bank and the World Economic Forum charts, Slovakia lost its position compared to the precious evaluation,” informed the ministry in its annual report.
However, the Economy Ministry sees space for improvement of the business environment. “We’ve adopted a series of measures the effects of which will already be visible in the next evaluated period. These are mostly measures stemming from the so-called Singapore Program with an implementation schedule until 2013,” informs the ministry. The almost a hundred measures are divided into three thematic areas. The first one includes short-term measures aimed at improving Slovakia’s position in international comparisons; the second includes mid-term measures based on Slovak obligations towards the EU in order to curb bureaucracy and the third is based on consultations with enterprises. Their implementation should annually curb costs businesses pay for paperwork by some 109 million euros. The business environment should also improve with the Small Business Act for Europe initiative which focuses on supporting small and medium enterprises.
In 2011, Slovakia scored worse compared to previous years in the business environment statistics. According to the 2012 edition of the World Bank review Doing Business, among 183 states, Slovakia dropped five places and ended up 48th. Yet, Slovakia still remains the leader among its Visegrad Group colleagues: Hungary came in 51st, Poland 62nd and the Czech Republic 64th, the only one of the four countries to have improved its position. On this chart, Singapore had the best business environment, followed by Hong Kong and New Zealand.
SITA
