Strategies of the Development of Entrepreneurship and SME

“Armenia's new law introduces a number of important changes to the bankruptcyprocedure, increasing the range of actions available to companies in reorganization. The lawalso excludes the debtor's founders, shareholders and partners from voting on a reorganizationplan, and sets a two-day limit for the judge to decide whether to approve a plan. A privatecredit bureau started operating on 1 February 2007. It distributes credit information aboutfirms and individuals, has no minimum loan requirement and guarantees all borrowers accessto their credit reports. The implementation of an electronic data interchange system ("DirectTrader Input") allows customs brokers to submit declarations electronically to the customsoffices. Still in its early stage, the new process already contributed to halving the time fordocument preparation to now 3 days. Electronic transmission also means less opportunity forcorruption. ““Azerbaijan reduced company's profit tax by two points to 22% and social securitycontribution payable by the employer by 5 points to 22%, causing the Doing Business tax rateto fall by 1.2% points While new software now makes the filing of corporate income tax faster,more detailed reporting forms have increased the time to file for labor taxes. Azerbaijanabolished the requirement to obtain approval of the company seal design by the Ministry ofJustice days.”“Bulgaria. The more efficient procedure results in a decrease in time from 52 to 30eased the tax burden on businesses and made it easier to pay taxes online. Bulgaria alsointroduced private bailiffs to improve efficiency in enforcing judgments. And it made buildinginspections less burdensome.”In the meantime “Georgia reformed in six areas. It strengthened investor protections,including through amendments to its securities law that eliminate loopholes that had allowedcorporate insiders to expropriate minority investors. It adopted a new insolvency law thatshortens timelines for reorganization of a distressed company or disposition of a debtor’sassets. Georgia sped up approvals for construction permits and simplified procedures forregistering property. It made starting a business easier by eliminating the paid-in capitalrequirement. In addition, the country’s private credit bureau added payment information fromretailers, utilities, and trade creditors to the data it collects and distributes.”“Moldova revised its Code of Civil Procedure, Law on the Status of Judges, Law on theJudiciary and Law on the Supreme Judicial Counsel. It increased judges' salaries and introducedrandomly assigning court cases to increase judicial independence. Moldova also decreasedseveral taxes, including corporate income and labor taxes paid by businesses.“Romania lowered several labor taxes paid by the employer, including social security,unemployment and health fund contributions. It also amended provisions of the Civil ProcedureCode regarding enforcement. These regulatory changes have a positive impact on becausemanagement's control of company's assets is now suspended during reorganization and theparties may agree to an out-of -court enforcement. In addition, property registration waseffected by a January 2007 law that abolished the authentication tax for transfers of immovableproperty (amounting to 0.5% property value in our case), but replaced it with another ‘income'tax on a scale. According to our hypothetical case, the applicable rate is RON 4,000 plus 1%property value over RON 200,000. The overall result is an increase in total cost to transferproperty. Furthermore, after implementing the order number 752/2006 of the Ministry ofFinance, the time needed to obtain a fiscal certificate from the local fiscal authority hasdecreased from 2-30 days to 7-11 days. However, because this procedure is simultaneous withothers, the overall effect on time is nil.”“Russia, since July 2006, the Moscow Committee for State Construction supervision isresponsible for both construction permits and technical compliance. A new law requires thebuilding authority to issue permits within 10 days from the receipt of all documents. A simple12