Montenegro's Cabinet discusses advancement of business environment at two-day thematic session in Nikšić

Nikšić, Montenegro ((30 May 2014) – The Government of Montenegro's started late this afternoon in the municipality of Nikšić its two-day thematic session on advancing business environment and making it more conducive to investors and entrepreneurs.

Introductory speeches, delivered by the prime minister and ministers of justice, finance, interior affairs, and sustainable development and tourism, defined the main challenges in tackling business environment, as the key prerequisite for attracting investors, creating new jobs, more dynamic economic growth and improved standard of living of the Montenegrin citizens. 

Reform of the judiciary is essential for the economic development of the country and its European future, the meeting underlined. It ensures legal certainty of commercial entities, thus creating more favourable business climate, as normative and regulatory frameworks have direct effects on a company’s operations, its competitiveness and productivity, and in macroeconomic terms, on the level of the country’s economic growth as well.

Serious challenges Montenegro is facings nowadays in reinforcing the efficiency of its judicial system are concerned with the backlog of cases, long duration of court proceedings and inadequate courts network. In order to resolve these issues, it is necessary to undertake normative and institutional measures, as well as those concerning human resources development, the today's Cabinet meeting concluded.

Easiness of doing business and elimination of business barriers have been the top priorities of the government’s work, and its achievements were recognised by the 2014 World Bank’s Doing Business report, which ranked Montenegro 44th out of 189 countries. The goal is to boost that position, which is crucial for attracting foreign investments and promoting domestic businesses.

To that end, the Government will focus its attention on three key areas, namely the tax policy, financial reporting, and property and legal affairs.

The existing Law on Administrative Procedure sets out relatively complicated and long-lasting administrative procedures and do not provide the necessary legal framework for the e-administration. In order to fulfil obligation arising from the EU agenda, it is critical to achieve better results when it comes to administrative procedures, primarily in terms of their efficiency, promptness and legality, Montenegro’s Cabinet agreed.

Advancing business environment in tourism industry, as an area which has considerable influence on Montenegro’s BDP and amount of direct foreign investments, was also on today’s meeting agenda.

By the same token, the government concluded that undertaking measures with regard to tourist seasons duration, increase in consumption and income from tourism, transport accessibility and combating gray economy will take central stage in its work in the coming period.

Furthermore, as to construction and spatial planning, the efforts will be concentrated on increasing efficiency and productivity of state and local administrations, especially in issuing construction permits, having in mind a great deal of unnecessary and burdening procedures the issuance requires, the Government emphasised.

The thematic session is to be continued tomorrow, when the Cabinet's members are to propose concrete solutions, measures and amendments to laws concerning the issue of major significance for the Montenegrin economy's competitiveness and growth.