Reforms offset Covid impact
Reforms are improving the business environment on a constant and enduring basis, as well as containing the effects of the pandemic, concluded an MRB survey for the Business Environment Observatory of the Federation of Hellenic Enterprises (SEV), which showed the Difficulty Assessment Index drop below 5 for the first time.
The survey gave an index reading of 4.9 points on a 1-to-10 scale, with 1 meaning “no difficulty” and 10 denoting “great difficulty.” The difficulties that enterprises face in the macro and micro environment appear to have declined, as the index read 5.3 last year and 7 in 2017.
Although the biggest obstacle in the broader economic and political environment is always high taxation (according to 45.5% of respondents), this matter has shown significant improvement compared to last year (say 70.6% of participants); that is attributed to measures such as the reduction of corporate tax rates from 24% to 22%, of the corporate tax deposit from 100% to 80% and the exemption from the solidarity levy of the incomes from business activities, from capital use (dividend, interest etc) and from capital transfer gains.
Nevertheless the increase in energy costs and price hikes in general are generating concern among businesses, regardless of size.
