Finland Times

 

The Serbian representative of U.S. commercial data company Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) in a latest report estimated that Serbia is a country of high risk for doing business because of regional political instability and corruption.

 

     Company Rating, a Serbian representative of D&B, in its July report released Tuesday, said Serbia was marked with the index 5 on the scale of 7 in this month's Dun & Bradstreet risk assessment ratings, along with Greece, Cyprus, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Georgia.

 

     Croatia and Slovenia were the best rated by D&B in July's ratings out of countries from the region, while Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, Hungary and Macedonia also ended up above Serbia in the rankings. Still the paper estimates that the whole of Western Balkans is going through "the most instable period for business in this century."

 

     The report estimates that Serbia is in the zone of high risk due to serious political instability in Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as Serbian southern province of Kosovo that unilaterally declared independence in 2008, besides additional pressure put by the European Union (EU) and Russia on the region.

 

     It continues that recovery of Serbia's economy could be additionally slowed down by potential instability in Greece both countries have significant trade, while Greek banks have an important share of Serbian market.

 

     Finally, the report concludes that the business environment in Serbia is additionally degraded by its large number of companies that avoid their obligation to pay taxes by working outside of the system, or by providing incomplete reports of their business.

 

     "Although the government took steps to strengthen tax control, the informal sector remains to be a problem," the paper reads, adding that one of the problems is the corruption among the tax inspectors.