FIC Executive Director gave interview for Tanjug
13. November 2009
“The Foreign Investors Council (FIC) has submitted over 100 recommendations to the government on how to reform tax, customs, telecommunications, and labour legislation as part of Serbia’s regulatory guillotine project”, stated FIC Executive Director Ana Firtel Vlajic, in the interview for Tanjug.
The recommendations seek to help Serbia emerge from the economic crisis as a more competitive investment destination, Firtel Vlajic said, noting that the FIC has identified two types of problems - one related to outdated regulations and the other to ambiguous new legislation. The FIC noticed that various tax authorities interpret certain regulations, including the one envisaging a 10-year tax holiday for new investments, in different ways, she said, adding that the Council believes that the tax holiday should be implemented consistently. It also advised switching to more modern and efficient goods and service inventorying required as part of foreign trade procedures.
The FIC further recommended simplifying procedures and paperwork that telecom companies face when building a single base station and proposed that temporary employment contract terms be extended from one year currently to two or three years.
In related news, Deputy Prime Minister Mladjan Dinkic, who coordinates the work of a government unit in charge of the regulatory guillotine project, told Vecernje Novosti that the Unit has submitted hundreds of recommendations on how to reform legislation to line ministries. The ministers are to give their opinions this week, after which time the unit will prepare a report on which recommendations should be accepted and send it to the government, he said. Dinkic, who is also economy and regional development minister, repeated that he expects some 200 regulations to be scrapped by the end of the year. The regulatory guillotine is hoped to cut Serbian companies' costs by EUR 200 million annually, he said.
17. July 2010