Eurochambers' second survey, entitled "Competitiveness of Western Balkan Companies", covered more than 1,800 companies in the Western Balkans, mainly small and medium-sized enterprises from the manufacturing sector.
A third of the companies interviewed admitted to have no information about the relevant EU legislation, and only one out of 10 enterprises said it was satisfied with the degree of its knowledge of EU provisions.
The survey shows that the most used information sources are the Internet (72% of respondents) the EU website (63%), EU business partners (60%) and chambers of commerce (60%). It also shows that the respondents still do not take full advantage of the information flow provided by the European institutions and local EU delegations.
As for the efficiency of the negotiating teams of Macedonia and Croatia as the only countries with EU membership candidate status, the Macedonian team was rated as more efficient. In this context the survey says that 41% of Croatian companies do not know who is involved in accession negotiations on behalf of their country.
The survey further shows that there are obstacles still hindering Western Balkan companies' trade with the EU and neighbouring countries in Southeast Europe. Time-consuming and expensive customs procedures were rated as the major impediment, although problems related to certification and company registration also scored very high.
The trade potential with the EU is far from being exploited, with 47% of respondents saying that sales to the EU totalled less than 10% of the company's earnings.
There is no crucial difference between Western Balkan companies with regard to trade with the EU, although Croatian companies can still be considered the most successful on the EU markets, with one third of them sending the bulk of their exports to this destination.
The survey also shows that Croatian companies (64%) are the most experienced in doing business with the EU, followed by Macedonian enterprises (61%). Conversely, Albania and Bosnia-Herzegovina are the only countries where the enterprises not familiar with the EU market outnumber the ones that are.
Inter-regional trade is also at low level, with 30% of the companies interviewed saying they have never experienced trading within Southeast Europe.
"In the last year there was no progress towards closer economic relations between the EU and the Western Balkans," the Secretary General of Eurochambers, Arnaldo Abruzzini, said, calling for more efforts to eliminate practical trade barriers and provide easier access to EU commercial information.
Eurochambers is the association of European chambers of commerce and industry, representing 44 national associations of chambers of commerce and industry, a European network of 2000 regional and local chambers with over 18 million member enterprises in Europe.