THE SLOVAK economy landed 35th worldwide in the 2008 Index of Economic Freedom survey conducted by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal. Slovakia thus moved five spots upwards and scored 68.7 percent, the SITA newswire wrote.
The index evaluated the economic freedom of 160 countries in ten categories, ranging from fiscal burdens and government regulation to monetary and trade policy.
"Slovakia was praised for a high level of freedom in business, investment and trading. On the other hand, Slovakia was criticised mainly due to its judiciary and weak law enforcement and still has a high level of corruption," Martin Chren from the F.A. Hayek Foundation told SITA.
In comparison with other countries of Central Europe, Slovakia achieved the best result. The Czech Republic ranked 37th, while Hungary took 43rd. Out of the Visegrad Group countries, Poland had the worst ranking at 83rd.
