Dzień: 17 listopada, 2015

Recently, 12 countries, including the United States, Japan, Singapore and Australia, reachedan agreement on the formulation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The combined gross domestic product (GDP) of these countries accounts for 40 per cent of the world’s GDP.

Established to promote collaboration, peace and stability among its members, The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been in existence since 1967. However, this December marks a significant step in its economic development with the creation of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). The advent of the AEC brings not only a master plan for regional economic integration but the likely realisation of ASEAN’s exceptional potential both as a low-cost manufacturing hub and an importer of consumer goods.

The Economist discussed recently the necessary ‘devolution’ of the Scandinavian model in Norway, following similar trends in Sweden and Denmark. The article makes several good points about the effects of bureaucratization and high-tax welfare on entrepreneurship and corporate culture in a country where the government owns 40% of the stock market and employs 33% of the workforce (almost double the percentage in OECD countries). 

In the most recent ranking of the World Economic forum, which compares the competitiveness of 140 countries around the world, Slovakia ranked 67th. Since we ranked 8 places higher the year before, the media presented this as positive news. If we, however, look at the long-term evolution of the Slovak economy’s competitiveness not only in this, but in other rankings, we realize that the picture we are looking at is drastically different. What becomes apparent is a tragic story of a dramatic decline in our competitiveness.

In the end of September 2015 Civil Development Forum (FOR) organized press conference to inform about the 5th anniversary of the public debt clock located in the city center of Warsaw. In Poland, public expenditures have significantly exceeded revenues for many years. This, in turn, led to higher public debt.