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Sramko: Slovakia Can't Tackle Effects of Crisis Alone
Wednesday 30 December 2009 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, December 30 (TASR) - Due to its structure, Slovakia's economy has objectively low chances of tackling the effects of the economic crisis alone, outgoing central bank (NBS) governor Ivan Sramko has told TASR.
The small internal market and the pronounced openness of the Slovak economy have led to huge dependency on developments in the economies of its biggest partners. "It means that the scope for the Government to deal with this is limited. It is possible to adopt measures that would have stronger and faster effects on GDP and employment, but - in the medium and long term - they would create big problems with high indebtedness and deficits," emphasised Sramko.
At the same time, the NBS governor stated that several anti-crisis measures that were adopted by the Government have helped to mitigate the effects of the crisis. This goes mainly for those aimed at maintaining employment via motivating employers to hold on to employees.
"Several measures have been adopted that also made sense, such as the scrapyard contribution, which was more a gesture of the joint approach to resolving the crisis in several countries, as the Slovak car industry also profited from the scrapyard contribution in Germany, for example," said Sramko.
The NBS chief also praised the fact that infrastructure projects in the road network and energy have been speeded up, thus contributing to economic growth and employment in 2009 and 2010.
He also noted that Slovakia is one of the few countries with a Government that has not been compelled to save or stabilise banks in the wake of the crisis. The central bank deserves part of the credit for this, claimed Sramko, adding that it is proof of the stability of Slovakia's banking sector.
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