Abstract

The aim of this study is to explore the opportunities of doing business in the Balkans. Assessing some of the well known international competitiveness indexes and surveys, we introduce how easy it is to do business in Albania, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Bulgaria, in Croatia, in Macedonia, in Romania and in Serbia. The study displays the changes of the economical environment in these countries during the last few years, and summarizes the main tendencies in the examined region.

In our analysis we used the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) edited by the World Economic Forum (WEF), the Doing Business Index (DBI), the dataset of the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) and the BEEPS, all of which were established by The World Bank. We also used the Economic Freedom Index published by the Heritage Foundation, the World Competitiveness Yearbook issued by the International Institute for Management Development (IMD), and the surveys of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM).