Economy

From a total of 34 OECD countries, 29 of them have a minister for regulatory reform – Slovakia is not one of them. 33 OECD countries have a permanent institution for overseeing regulatory policy – Slovakia is not one of them.

The Centre for Economic and Market Analyses published a study about the shadow economy in the Czech Republic. The study deals with the theoretical aspects of shadow economy, methodology and definition, it includes international comparison, determination of driven factors as well as provides a further analysis of chosen industries.

After years of being ignorant to the ICT and the digital economy in general, the Czech Republic has now changed its position and declares its full support to the digital agenda as well as the EU Digital Single Market Strategy. The problem, however, is that the actual implementation of these promises has been lagging behind for a long time.

Security is the biggest challenge for our economy. To counteract a similar challenge, Israel, for example, is entirely militarized, regardless of the fact that numerous international lobbyist groups assist it, including financially. A country facing such security challenges might have armed forces three or four times stronger than Georgia and a defense budget 10 times larger.

Soon after the outbreak of Volkswagen scandal, it was found out that not only Volkswagen, but also many other, and potentially, all car producers which release diesel cars have the same problem. Their management, who cheated their way around the strict emission limits, eats humble pie at the press conferences.

A common EU cyberspace market is expected to transform cyberspace into a favourable environment for new businesses and provide even the smallest digital companies with access to 500 million consumers across the EU. It is indeed an excellent intention, but what are the steps to a successful implementation?

Cuba needs a comprehensive structural reform of the constitution, legal system, economy and within its society. It needs to open up to dialogue, interchange and cooperation with today’s key international players: the United States, Europe, Latin America and the international institutions.

In the most recent ranking of the World Economic forum, which compares the competitiveness of 140 countries around the world, Slovakia ranked 67th. Since we ranked 8 places higher the year before, the media presented this as positive news.

A few weeks ago, the Fed expressed no intention to increase interest rates, but the will to maintain the current ones of 0 to 0.25%. The problem is that cheap money does not only indicate the prevailing economic problems, but imply long-term negative impact on both savers and economy.

The short natural gas supply cut to Ukraine during the 2006 gas crisis and the 2009 dispute, in which Gazprom again decided to halt all gas supplies via Ukraine, not only contributes to a growing perception of the politicisation of EU-Russian gas trade but the reliability of Russia as an energy provider in general.