Companies in Slovakia still consider red tape a problem worsening the country’s competitiveness and discouraging them from growing and employing more people. This stems from the recent survey carried out by the Business Alliance of Slovakia (PAS).
“Nonsensical state bureaucracy in Slovakia has been a barrier that is not getting smaller, but increasing instead,” said Peter Kremský, executive director of PAS, as quoted by the TASR newswire.
In the recent competitiveness ranking issued by the World Economic Focus, managers described red tape as the second biggest obstacle for doing business, after corruption. The business environment index also suggests that bureaucracy belongs among the biggest problems, Kremský added.
Slovakia’s competitiveness has improved Read more Red tape is not only annoying, but prevents Slovak companies from competing against rivals from other countries. This results in the country not having as high an economic growth as it could. The same applies for the creation of jobs, the possibilities of expanding to foreign markets and higher salaries. Nearly three-quarters of respondents consider this a serious problem, while one-quarter say it is only a partial problem, TASR reported.
The needless red tape mostly impacts the motivation of entrepreneurs to do business, invest, grow and hire new staffers. More than half of the respondents chose this possibility, while one-quarter complained mostly about the loss of time. The rest picked the waste of energy and money, the PAS survey suggests.
Moreover, the respondents complain most about the red tape accompanying various permits, confirmations and certificates, as well as reporting various data and statistics.
Slovakia’s business environment keeps deteriorating Read more The third most annoying area is the personnel agenda, followed by the tax and payroll levies agenda.
The results of the survey suggest that entrepreneurs in Slovakia still need to deal with many documents for the official authorities. The fact is that most of them are issued by the state or one of its offices, which turns people into couriers who have to spend their time visiting various authorities and delivering documents to them, TASR reported.
