| Slovakia Will Probably Meet Maastricht Criteria |
|
|
| Tuesday, 13 March 2007 | |
|
Slovakia's chances of adopting the euro as planned on January 1, 2009 are good, said International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission to Slovakia head Biswajit Banerjee after meeting Slovak Finance Minister Jan Pociatek in Bratislava on Tuesday. "Fiscal policies in Slovakia observe the eurozone requirements, and the budget deficit is set in such a way that it will meet the Maastricht criteria," said Banerjee. At the same time, Banerjee identified certain risks. According to him, Slovakia needs to ensure that not only the Government, but also other levels of public administration manage their finances in accordance with the budget. In the medium term, Slovakia's economy needs to become more flexible. "Once you are in the eurozone, monetary and exchange-currency policies are no longer available. The flexibility of fiscal and wage policies become more important, therefore," said Banerjee. For this reason, the IMF advises that a more flexible structure of state budget expenditures be introduced, and that stricter fiscal policy should be observed at a time when the economy is expanding. In addition, Banjeree stressed that proposed labour market reforms shouldn't be allowed to have an adverse effect on labour market flexibility and threaten the competitiveness of the Slovak economy.source: TASR-SLOVAKIA |
| Next > |
|---|
