ECONOMIC freedom in Slovakia has been ranked 35th among 180 countries worldwide in this year's Index of Economic Freedom survey, conducted by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative American think tank, the SITA newswire reported.
Slovakia scored 69.7 points and moved up one spot from last year.
“Slovakia's score has increased by 0.3 points from last year, with a noticeable drop in labour freedom offset by small improvements in four other economic freedom categories,” SITA reported a Heritage Foundation statement as saying. It also said that regulations on working hours remain relatively rigid.
Two of the weakest scores from among the 10 fields measured were again property rights and corruption, receiving only 55 and 50 points out of 100, respectively.
“Slovakia's overall economic freedom remains limited by two institutional weaknesses,” the report reads. “The judicial system is inefficient and slow, and Slovakia scores relatively low in freedom from corruption, with only limited progress in recent years.”
Slovakia’s overall score is higher than the world average. It is especially praised for its fiscal and trade freedom, which received 87.5 and 84 points respectively.
