Slovakia is losing investors to its neighbours and partners in the Visegrad Four (V4) formation (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia), said Rastislav Cenký of the Institute for transport and economy NGO. According to him, companies warn about a worsening of the business environment. With the exception of labour productivity, Slovakia scores the worst in all other factors when compared to other V4 members.
"We are losing investments and the recent loss in the competition for the BMW carmaker's plant is an example of that. Investors consider not only the benefits, which the state offers them, but also the state of the infrastructure and attitude towards big companies," said Cenký, also criticizing the lacking vision of a stable business environment without constant changes. As the Aktuality.sk portal wrote, even according to the Economy Ministry, there is a need for systematic changes and an active attitude from central state institutions. Earlier this year, Economy Minister Peter Žiga pointed to the fact that in the 2017 Doing Business Report elaborated by the World Bank Group, Slovakia had dropped from 33rd to the 39th position.
Cenký believes that the state is forgetting employers, as they are the ones which must create conditions for employees. According to him, trade unions are sometimes counterproductive in their efforts to improve conditions for workers. As the analysis of the Platy.sk portal shows, in the last 3 years the number of workers with no benefits dropped from 30% to under 25%. Cenký also said that Slovakia's competitiveness is falling due to the disproportional growth in salaries, which stems from a lack of workers and historically low unemployment rate of 5.23%.
Moreover, Cenký does not believe that the situation should be solved by importing foreign workers. He sees an option in systematic changes such as the requalification of marginalized groups, looking for reserves in the state sector and relocating the local workforce from, for example, the mining industry which should be attenuated in his opinion.
