Fulltext search in archive

The authors analyze and interpret the data of the Czech Statistical Office about the consumption of the selected foods in the form of secondary analysis. The effort was to take into account the assessment of the trends as well as to deduce their possible impact on the health condition of an individual. From the analyses mentioned, it is obvious that in the selected statistical data of the development of food and beverages consumption in the Czech Republic the tendencies towards healthy life style have not been unambiguous or significant within the last eight years.

There still exist the differences in the legal frame of VAT, its interpretation and application of the rules in practice between the EU member states. The application of VAT during providing management services to an enterprise in other EU state directly or through a subsidiary in the state of the recipient is different as well. Questions of the VAT application during the provision of management services were searched by using standard methods of the scientific work in the frame of five selected EU countries - Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

The objective of this paper is the analysis of the macroeconomic aspects of regional development in the Slovak Republic. Regional development is a much frequented topic recently. In the pre-accession period, Slovak regions had the opportunity of benefiting from the pre-accession funds and competing for finances through projects and strategies. The EU support did not stop with the accession, it continues with the increasing intensity and variability at present. The real challenge is how efficiently is this support used and if it goes to the destinations where it is most needed. For the purposes of the identification of regional development tendencies, we have tried to analyze the selected macroeconomic characteristics for Slovak regions at the NUTS III level. We analyze the following indicators: GDP per capita, labor productivity, foreign direct investment, so that we can explore the situation of living standards in the regions and the determinants. We use the cluster analysis approach in order to specify and identify the regions with similar development characteristics. Based on our findings, we make some recommendations on the support and development strategies for Slovak regions.

The image of a shop is the perception of the attributes of trade chains which are stated by consumers or the target market. The part of the shop image can be the assortment, the production quality and price, services of the shop, organization, the location and atmosphere of the shop, advertising and the shop reputation. The basis for conceiving this paper was an assumption that the image of a shop is one of the determining factors of the shopping place choice. The individual attributes of a shop can affect the perception of a consumer and therefore affect his decision about the choice of a shop and buying goods. The image analysis of trade chains was processed on the basis of a 5-point scale which shows the respondents' attitude toward each and every of 29 attributes of the researched trade chains. The basic data were gained by the means of a questionnaire research in the field of Slovak consumers' behaviour and the results were analysed by the means of the semantic differential method. The shop image analysis hands out information which can be a starting point for understanding the importance of the attributes of the trade chains from the point of view of the consumer perception and attitude. Based on the image analysis of the foreign trade chains in the Slovak market, we can say that the consumers are satisfied with the opening hours, shops location, cleanliness and appearance of shops and the sufficient number of shopping trolleys. Minuses were noticed in the field of promotion activities and the waiting time at the registers.

This scientific paper shows the results formulated in the author's research focused on strategic decision-making of the company management in a new entrepreneurial environment resulting from changes caused by integration processes, the development of information technologies and globalisation factors. The goal of this paper is to publish the changes in behaviour of the management of the selected entrepreneurial entities resulting from new factors of changes affecting the entrepreneurial environment. This is reflected in the process of strategic decision-making of entrepreneurial entities in the necessity to use new methods of decision-making of the company management as a reaction to factors of the external as well as the internal environment. Rapid changes in particular in the external environment require the company management to select new approaches and methods of decision-making and to have a well conceived algorithm enabling a flexible response to customer wishes using the findings of knowledge management.

The article summarises the results of the analysis of value added (VA) in agriculture and food industry and the share of intermediate consumption in the value added. The results show that during 1993-2000, the Slovak agricultural sector (farming, hunting, forestry and fisheries), where farming is clearly dominant, together with the construction sector, reported the most significant decline in their relative contribution to the overall value added created in the national economy, whereas the contribution of market services increased. The moderate increase (1998, 1999) in the contribution of the food sector to the total value added in the national economy, as well as to industrial production (2000), has been brought to a halt and, eventually, began deflating. The tendency of declining participation of the agricultural sector in value added was also typical for the EU member states and for the CEFTA countries. Agriculture remains dominant in terms of its contribution to value added in the agri-food sector (54.5% in the year 2000). In the category of land-farming holdings, the share of intermediate consumption in value added increased (both in co-operatives and business companies, whether loss-making or profitable). The farmers in mountainous areas spent per 1 SKK of value added 0.65-1.42 SKK more of intermediate consumption than farmers in the maize production area and 0.54-1.32 SKK more than farmers in the sugar-beet production area. In the production of foodstuffs, beverages and tobacco processing, which is more demanding in terms of consumed inputs than agricultural production (the same is true for developed economies), the ratio between intermediate consumption and value added differed depending on the branch concerned. Agriculture was one of the most demanding sectors in terms of fixed asset investments necessary to generate value added. The initial decline was brought to stop in 1998 and the relative share of fixed assets (FA) in value added (VA) started to increase, particularly in the year 2000, mainly under the influence of increased support to farmers' capital investments. Although the creation of value added in agricultural co-operatives initially demanded more investments in fixed assets than it was the case in farming business companies, the difference narrowed over the time. The group of loss-making entities reported the FA/VA ratios twice as high as the group of profitable entities, which sends a signal to the former to revise the structure of their production and to improve management practices. Similarly as in the case of intermediate consumption, also the FA/VA ratio increased as the production conditions deteriorated. The ratios in the production of foodstuffs and beverages (without tobacco processing) were significantly lower than those in the farming sector. In 1999, the lowest FA/VA ratio occurred in the production of durable bakery products and the highest in the production of fruit and vegetable juices.

This article presents information about the development and the structure of indices regarding natural and legal persons in the years 2000 and 2002. Finally, the development of indices is compared with the year 1990. The article characterizes the development of companies, which are farming land, like cooperatives, business companies, state owned companies and natural persons. It demonstrates the number and structure of companies in the branches of the agri-food sector divided into agriculture, agricultural services and food industry. Moreover, the article presents agricultural land area used by natural and legal persons. This contribution draws information from the results of the questionnaire, which was made by the regional offices of the Ministry of Agriculture. In conclusion, the article suggests the possible orientation of organizations in the short time period

This article sets out to analyze the value added generation in the Slovak agrarian sector at the time of the accession to the EU compared to which we are severely lagging behind in the overall generation of gross value added. A more detailed analysis of the value added generation over the recent years in a group of agricultural enterprises being legal entities indicates that the enterprise efficiency expressed in terms of value added generation is markedly differentiated depending on the natural conditions of the locations where individual businesses operate. Great differences in the added value between enterprises can also be found in the group of enterprises having the same natural conditions. The reason for this is a differentiation in the degree to which intensification inputs are utilized due to high prices, lack of financial resources, inefficient combination of inputs used and insufficient recognition of the importance of the value added by managers, particularly in planning of production structures and production finalization grade.

The main aims of this study are to describe how much the economic role of agriculture decreased, and this decrease comes mainly from some economic difficulties, for example weak income position of producers based on weak capital accumulation. So agricultural producers need financial supports to improve their production and favourable credit conditions. In 1990s during the last decade, the role of agriculture in the national economy decreased, which contributed to its decreasing share in GDP and real value of agricultural GDP. In 2001, in spite of the fact that the plant production considerably increased and the animal husbandry stagnated, the whole agricultural production volume was by 20 percent under its level of 1989. Finally by the end of 2001, the share of agriculture declined to 4 percent of GDP and together with food industry, their share was about 7 percent. The agricultural scissors increased considerably, namely from 126.5 percent in 1992 to 138.4 percent in 2001.The income conditions made a significant influence on the capacity of the agricultural sector in fields of investments and accumulation. The main problem was the decline of real value of investments. For example the real value of investments in 2001 had not implemented half of investments realised in 1989. This situation showed the low level of technological and technical development in the agricultural sector during a longer period, than a decade. It was important to increase different kinds of supports for agricultural producers, for example: export subsidies, interests of credits, supports for establishing new farmland structure. The share of supports for agricultural production and food industry was 12-14 percent of the two sectors' GDP in 1990s. The development of the main factors of agricultural incomes was determined by index calculations based on the data of the APEH (Hungarian Tax and Financial Supervising Office) and EAA (Economic Accounts for Agriculture). The supports are needed, which are as follows: based on the APEH data, the profit before tax of 23 billion HUF in 1997 decreased to the loss-level of 8 billion HUF by the end of 1990s. The main aim for agricultural producers was to increase their capital accumulation to implement improvement of production in order to be competitive on the world and domestic markets. There is a difficulty that at the end of 1990s, only about 30 percent of the supports was directly provided for agricultural producers. In Hungary, without taxes and other different deprivals, the current value of production supports was over the level of incomes obtained in agricultural sector, but according to the calculation methods of the OECD, the value of PSE (PSE= Producer Support Estimate) index was at a very low level and it had a decreasing tendency, which could not ensure enough income for agricultural producers in Hungary. So the development of agricultural production cannot be realised additionally to the unfavourable background conditions for the sector. Comparing the support structure experienced in the OECD with that in Hungary, it can be declared, that within the PSE (Producer Support Estimate) during 1997-2000, the MPS (Market Price Support) declined, similarly it was in Hungary. In the OECD, the 8-9 percent share of payments based on input use has remained at s

Competitiveness can be analysed at various levels of the economy: at the product level, the enterprise level, the sector level, or the level of the entire economy. Several measures exist for each of these levels. This paper focuses on those used for the analysis of enterprises, particularly agricultural enterprises farming in Slovakia. Our research has been done on a selected sample of agricultural enterprises farming in Slovakia. Using "Recourse Cost Ratio" (RCR coefficient) has allowed investigating the differences in competitiveness between co-operatives and business companies, between the enterprises farming in better and worse soil and natural conditions as well as among various size groups of 111 agricultural enterprises. The research has proved that the optimal values of RCR coefficient revealed, that the common feature of all the competitive enterprises was their type of production oriented on solely plant production, possibly plant and meat production (there was no case of competitive enterprise with solely meat production). As for the different legal forms, we found out that more competitive were business companies than co-operatives. Considering different soil and natural conditions, there were better results observed in the group of enterprises farming in better soil and natural conditions.

This article presents a new science-based approach which identifies the most effective current-period short-term objective of an enterprise, which is usually set based on the pure judgment of top management members or enterprise's experts. The method is based on fuzzy-decision-making system and makes robust utilization of enterprise's experts' knowledge, intuition and expertise. A simple illustrative example is provided to demonstrate how the method can be efficiently and effectively used in practice. The proposed approach can be used to identify the short-term objective of any profit-making-enterprise, and is specially applicable to business industries that are full of qualitative, stochastic, uncertain, and vague variables such as the case in agricultural business (e.g., agro-food companies, fertilizers, and agro-chemical producers), and industrial firms (e.g., electronics, home appliances, machine tools companies ... etc.), and is generally applicable to any other business sector.

A marketing-mix setting model is presented. The all four P's are integrated and identified. The model makes strong utilization of relevant experts' knowledge and expertise through a fuzzy-decision-making system tailored to dynamically set the marketing-mix periodically in response to changing business environment. Quantitative, qualitative, uncertain, and vague variables are handled necessary to provide a realistic solution. The proposed model is particularly applicable to changing business environments that are full of such qualitative, stochastic, uncertain, and vague variables as in the case of agricultural business (e.g., agro-food companies, fertilizers and agro-chemical producers), and generally applicable to any other business sector. The method can be considered as the fuzzy-expert system for determining values of the marketing decision variables.

Hungary has recently become a member of the European Economic Union (EU) and most of the economic benefits are expected to come from expanded trade with other EU nations. While some variation in agricultural policy continues to exist between EU members, all countries generally, benefit from lower tariffs and expanded trade opportunities. However, Hungary must also be able to compete on the basis of quality and price in order to maintain current domestic markets and sell more to other EU countries. In order for the Hungarian agriculture and food industry to contribute to economic development it must continue to focus on efficiency and competitiveness. Hungary benefits from many natural features, which provide favourable conditions for agriculture: fertile plains, an advantageous climate and production experience, which makes possible a total yearly agricultural and food products trade surplus fluctuating between 1.5 and 2 billion US $ for the last 12 years. However, after the EU accession, the Hungarian internal market has become fully open and domestic products have to compete with the products of other EU members. This is why the renewal of food regulation and policy was indispensable. This article examines the Hungarian food policy (1) before the transformation to a market oriented system, when the policy was quantity orientated, (2) during the pre-accession period, when quality policy became more important, and (3) after accession to the EU where food safety has become more important.

This article presents some partial conclusions from the solution to the Research Project QF 4142 Higher exploitation of non-food production in the industry. The funding and supporting programmes of the growing of short rotation coppices (SRC) are described. The establishment of short rotation coppices and the subsequent exploitation of wood mass are promising trends of diversification of farmers' activities in the rural space. Plot sizes in ha and financial support to the establishment of the SRC plantations are given for 2001-2004, when a total of 166 ha of supported short rotation coppices was established. The establishment support is paid at a single installment while the amount paid for the establishment of the SRC production plantation is 60 000 CZK/ha and the amount paid for the establishment of mother plantation (reproduction plantation) is 75 000 CZK/ha.

Like other small rural settlements, Svatý Jan pod Skalou is dealing with financial and personnel problems within the exertion of public administration. That is why there is necessary to think about the potential integration strategies in a way, which would enable the commune to keep advantages of its own strengths and to solve disadvantages that hinder its future development. Methodical procedures of this paper are compounded of two parts - analytical situation study and formulation of preliminary options of integration strategies of the municipality, and their preliminary evaluation. Those parts also include a proposal of the evaluation tool of the selected strategies. With regard to the proposed strategies (integration with the neighboring village Hostím; joining the microregion - Local Action Group; integration with one of the near-by villages), it seems that the first option is the most beneficial, eventually in the combination with the second option. Those options would ensure a successful development of the municipality as a tourist location on the basis of the endogenous approach to rural development

The Velvet Revolution in November 1989 in the former Czechoslovakia opened the way to the renewal of the democratic political system. One of the most visible aspects of the Czech political development consisted in the renewal of the essential functions of elections and political parties. On the local level, however, the political process - as well as in other post-communist countries - continued to be for a long time influenced by the remains of the former centralized system wherein the local administration used to be subjected to the central state power. Municipal elections took hold in these countries, however, the local government remained in the embryonic state and a certain absence of real political and economic decision-making mechanism on the local level continued to show. The public administration in the Czech Republic had to deal with the changes in the administrative division of the state, the split of the Czechoslovak federation as well as the fragmentation of municipalities whose number increased by 50 percent. Decision making mechanisms on the local and regional level were suffering from the incomplete territorial hierarchy of public administration and from the unclear division of power between the state administration and local administration bodies. Only at the end of the 1990s, the public administration in the Czech Republic started to get a more integrated and specific shape. Citizens participation in the political process represents one of the key issues of representative democracy. The contemporary democracy has to face the decrease in voter turnout and the low interest of citizens to assume responsibility within the political process. The spread of democratising process following the fall of the iron curtain should not overshadow the risk of internal weakness of democracy. The solution should be looked for in more responsible citizenship and citizens political participation. The degree of political participation is considered (together with political pluralism) to be the key element of representative democracy in general terms, as well as of democratic process on the local and regional level. The objective of this paper is to describe the specifics of citizens local political participation in the Czech Republic and to show the differences between rural and urban areas. The paper concentrates on voting and voter turnout but deals also with other forms of citizens political participation.

In this paper, we describe and compare the employment, wages and prices in the agricultural and other rural sectors in Central and East European countries. Together, we point out the lack of statistical information limiting the possibilities of the comparison. We comment the marked decrease in both production and employment in these sectors during the transition period. Together with low wages and the unfavourable development of the relation between the purchase and producer prices, this situation causes the retardation in the growth of the living standard of the rural population, in comparison with other sectors of the national economy. Therefore, the necessity of restructuring agricultural production arises, and first of all, the multifunctional character of the agriculture and the development of non-agricultural activities must be supported by the rural municipalities. It concerns, of course in different rates, all discussed countries.

The decisive role of globalization processes and development tendencies has many positive and negative effects in economic (foreign-trade), environmental, and (bio) technological areas. From the evolution point of view still very successful human adaptation strategy hit the basic limit given by the capacity of the Earth biosphere. The evolution determinants of human society and their economic or technological activities manifesting themselves by global problems can find way out of sustainable development. The application of the so-called preventive principle represents a great dilemma.

Management of natural resources in the context of sustainable development can be defined as the economic management of natural resources to allow their perpetual and undiminished supply. At the same time, use of the local natural resources should contribute to the economic and social development of the local community. It is vitally important to emphasize the role of local participation and knowledge. Experience, understanding, and expertise need to be assessed to help to determine the most effective roles for local individuals within the sustainable natural resource project. This assessment and its implications for the economy, community and protection of natural resources at the state, regional and local levels are a subject for case study.

The real trade development is estimated by the recalculation of nominal value through unit values (prices). The unit value indices reflect, besides the change of prices, also the changes in the structure and qualitative changes of the traded products. In the 70s, the average yearly increase of unit values reached 14% and reflected namely the inflation caused by the oil shocks. Since then, it reaches in average up to 1%. We can suppose that, under the normal conditions, unit values growth is rather the consequence of the qualitative and structural changes (increased share of the more sophisticated products of processing industry), in fact, prices in international trade have been decreasing for years already. The question whether the world trade growth rates decrease or accelerate is then still open. It is certain that the world trade volume growth rate (6.3%) has shown a considerable surpass to the production growth rate (4.1%).

This paper uses a dynamic, partial equilibrium econometric model to analyze the impact of the 2003 CAP reform and changes of exchange rate on agricultural markets and agricultural incomes in Slovakia. We evaluate three scenarios: (1) baseline scenario with no change in agricultural policies (Single Area Payment Scheme and top-ups are assumed until 2015), (2) CAP reform scenario with full decoupling from 2007 and with modulation from 2013, and (3) exchange rate scenario. In the baseline scenario, production increases. Consumption increases with some exceptions (like pork). Agricultural income rises significantly in the baseline scenario. The full decoupling has a minor impact on agricultural markets relative to the baseline. Weak Euro would lead to higher prices and higher production but lower consumption. Change in the exchange rate causes substitution in consumption of certain commodities due to the relative price changes.

This paper deals with problems of sustainable tourism. The goal of this work is to point out the current situation, possibilities and approaches to ecological certification in tourism in the Czech Republic. A survey was conducted among accommodation providers - it was targeted on assessing the level of conversancy with ecolabels that already exist in the Czech Republic as well as in Europe. The results of this survey are included in this paper. Furthermore, the attitudes of providers towards obtaining ecolabels were being found out.

The Agricultural Economics Research Institute has launched a research project with the aim to analyse the Hungarian land market and the changes occurred since the EU accession as well as to present the tendencies of the development. The statistical data on the land market is rather deficient and cannot be considered representative, therefore, we also included some empirical experiments summarising experts' opinion referring to all the counties of Hungary. In our paper, we provide our statements and conclusions. The survey shows that the landed property market in Hungary is in a state of anticipation. Demand is primarily for outstanding and good quality land of favourable location in certain countries or larger plots of arable and forestry land. Characteristically, the poorer quality, less accessible land of less favourable location in the neighbourhood of the depopulated, cul-de-sac villages is in oversupply. Scattered, wedged properties of small size or of unclear ownership (undivided common land) are difficult to sell. Many of the vendors are older people with subsistence worries or people who obtained the title by compensation but do not wish to get involved in cultivation. Increasingly more buyers are well capitalised farmers, who wish to increase their holdings, or to unite their property (by land swap). Another significant group of buyers wish to invest into landed property located in the neighbourhood of larger cities, at popular sites, next to main roads or motorways. According to our survey, in the immediate years before the EU accession land and lease prices increased significantly, many fold in relation to quality. Increases in land prices are due to a process of convergence to the EU prices intending to take advantage of the projected unified land market. Increases in lease prices are due to apportioning of the projected land based support between owner and lease holder. According to land sale experts (estate or realty agents) the land market will in the 5-10 years liven up resulting in increases in land and lease prices, although the extent of this cannot yet be prognosticated.

Bulgaria faced and still is facing many challenges in the accession process to the EU. Free movement of capital, and especially the development of the land market, is one of them. Although the progress is made, the market is still developing and the land prices are still below the average prices in EU. There are different reasons for this: very fragmented land after the restitution process, chaotic transactions, lack of bank credits for agricultural purposes, unrealistic expectations after the accession to the EU, etc. The land lease continues to be the preferred way for land cultivation instead of buying of land. All those problems are studied in the current paper. A concept for e-service that could contribute to solving the problems is introduced; relevant e-services are summarized and a particular solution is presented that uses results of the eTen project Bizmap.net. It is described how this solution could be used in the Bulgarian land market.

The research analyses the fundamental resources, farm structures, and composition by aim of farming, labour force and family income sources of the agricultural private holdings from the aspects of subsistence and income generation as well as of rural development. By processing the various databases, the research provides a clear picture on the situation of private holdings and groups of farms (self-supplying, marketing the surplus, commercial holdings). On the basis of the analyses, it is possible to estimate the number of competitive farms, that is, of professional farms, and the number of the producers who are not engaged in commercial production. This points out the need to extend the sphere of rural activities are connected to the other sectors of the national economy.

Using a file of economic indicators of a sample of selected agricultural enterprises, their economic results have been evaluated according to their production and climatic conditions, production orientation and the system of management since 1996. The long-term tendencies of economic results and the influencing factors shall be defined according to this analysis. The authors aim to assess the influence of external conditions on management of agricultural enterprises and how the economic result can be influenced. Next, the authors aim to analyse the influence of the accession of the Czech Republic to the EU. In 2005 the agricultural enterprises suffered a decrease in their profit compared with 2004, followed by a decrease of the profit rate. The decrease in the number of labour force and at the same time the increase of labour productivity shows a long-term tendency. Subsidies in agriculture have also been increasing in the long-term perspective. There was the first significant increase in 2004. Subsidies are one of the most important factors influencing the economics of agricultural enterprises and the dependence of their earnings on subsidies is increasing.

The contribution deals with the spatial distribution of approved projects under the Sectoral Operational Programme - Agriculture and Rural Development (SOP ARD) in the programme period 2004-2006. The approved projects from agrifood industry were concentrated in the production regions of western and southern Slovakia. It does not indicate only the high absorption capacity of the enterprise subjects, but also really well prepared projects in these regions. In the next programme period, we will have to count with unevenly distributed projects. On the other hand, the low absorption ability in the northern and mainly eastern areas of the SR may result in forming the islands of extreme extensity with negative socio-economical impacts. The SOP ARD (analogous to Sapard) accelerates the process of enterprising selection and significantly supports the increase of competitiveness in economically powerful farms.

Farm-sale, also known as direct sale, provides major opportunities to farmers in the future. This kind of sale is of increasing popularity in Europe, but farmers have to be familiar with the regulations concerning processing and sales. Mainly small and medium farmers prefer direct sale. In this activity, they must compete with an increasing number of hypermarkets, supermarkets and wholesale markets. When talking about direct sale, it means that farmers sell their products directly to customers. There are more options: (i) sale in their own shop, (ii) through a catalogue and (iii) delivery to restaurants and shops. It has to be mentioned that the development of special local products means the products representing a common local value and principally those that can be associated with a specific village due to their historical heritage or tradition. There is no standard or official definition for special local products that includes all the possible factors. Efforts of marketing and rural development experts are needed to identify and market these special products to the appropriate consumers. Meanwhile it has to be noticed that, mainly in Europe, the definition and the possibilities of product regulation concerning geographical origin, are clearly defined and well-known. However, the "protection of geographical origin" is not the same issue as "special local products" mentioned above. In a wider sense, these can be described from a marketing point of view as "local product, common product" that interconnect and integrate villages, people and approaches, but are not regulated and protected legally. These products mentioned above reach the consumer in relatively small quantities, through direct sale, and they are often attached to the services of rural tourism. The local products are also developed to ensure high quality products for the consumer or to attract tourists. People can be proud of them since they cannot be bought anywhere else. Advisers are also helping farmers choose the right sales channels to diversify their marketing activities.