THE APPROVAL process for investment assistance is to be made quicker and more efficient according to an Economy Ministry amendment to the Investment Assistance Aid Act that was cleared by the cabinet January 7.
The bill should ensure that the provision of investment assistance will be in line with the EU’s ‘regulation declaring certain categories of aid compatible with the internal market’ that has been effective as of July 1, 2014, the TASR newswire reported.
“Since there was a change of the legislation valid as of last year, when Brussels changed the intensity of the aid from 50 to 35 percent, we also made the change,” Economy Minister Pavol Pavlis said, as quoted by the SITA newswire. According to him, the 10-percent limit for creating the jobs did not work well in the practice. Therefore the ministry set the condition for companies to create at least 40 new jobs.
Among the changes that the bill would introduce is one that reduces the deadlines for decisions on the approval of investment aid. The ministry says that this should improve Slovakia’s competitiveness. It would also be mandatory to publish the results of decisions concerning investment assistance, TASR wrote.
According to chair of the Association of Towns and Villages of Slovakia Jozef Dvonč, the amendment is important for them, especially if they want to lure investors into their industrial parks. It is also important that the investors will also come to poorer regions in Slovakia where they will also stay, as reported by SITA.
Source: TASR, SITA
Compiled by Radka Minarechová from press reports
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