Sat, Feb 11 2012

Experts recall 'The Czech Miracle'

Mon, Nov 23 2009 12:25 CET

byStephan Delbos - The Prague Post

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Experts recall 'The Czech Miracle'

Before he became president, Klaus was one of the forces guiding the country into a free market economy.


Photo: World Economic Forum

Two decades ago, the newly independent Czechoslovak Republic set out on the gargantuan task of privatizing an entire country's economy, a project that spurred wild successes and flagrant abuses but nevertheless was dubbed the "Czech miracle."

In 1989, now president Václav Klaus, an economist, became finance minister of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic and was one of the forces guiding the countries into free market economies.

Critics point out, however, that Klaus' privatization policies also entrenched corruption in the Czech business environment.

Despite the hurdles along the way, the Czech economy has emerged as a stable and significant one in the Central and Eastern Europe region, even surviving the recent recession relatively unscathed compared with its neighbors.

Economists and policymakers talked to The Prague Post about the biggest economic transformations of the past two decades.

Read the full article on The Prague Post

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