Poland advances in the Economic Freedom ranking

In 2014, Poland advanced by 7 places to gain 50th place (67 points out of 100) on the Index of Economic Freedom conducted by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal. The improvement is mainly in the ease of conducting business, resulting from the deregulation of professions, and the softened procedures related to construction permits. Moreover, Poland received a high score on the Trade Freedom aspect, gaining 11th place. In terms of property rights and level of corruption, Poland was 41st. The weak points proved to be fiscalism (114th position), public spending (145th place) and the job market (97th place). In the CEE region countries ranked higher than Poland were Estonia (4th in Europe), Germany (8th), Lithuania (11th), Georgia (12th) and the Czech Republic (15th). Among all 43 European countries, Poland placed 23rd.