Title: Slovak economic diplomacy - practitioner's perspective in the times of change

Authors: Marek Csabay

Addresses: Pan-European University, Faculty of Economics and Business, Tematínska 10, 851 05 Bratislava, Slovakia

Abstract: Slovakia's economic diplomacy has experienced several institutional changes over the period of last 20 years. The recent one from 2011 has moved the management of economic diplomacy back to the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, but the responsibility for foreign trade performance and foreign trade policy remained at the Ministry of Economy, leaving to both departments the task to develop a new functioning modus operandi. At the same time, contractionary fiscal policies started to set challenges to the foreign service that can be concentrated to one question - how to increase the performance with limited or even decreasing resources. The answer to this question is important because economic diplomacy forms possibly the most valuable part of the national export promoting system of a small open economy. The article focuses on main issues related to the contemporary Slovak economic diplomacy from both academic and practitioner's perspective.

Keywords: economic diplomacy; commercial diplomacy; export promotion; institutional frameworks; Slovakia; Slovak Republic; institutional change; Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs; Ministry of Economy; foreign trade performance; foreign trade policies; fiscal policies; resources; exports.

DOI: 10.1504/IJDIPE.2014.064799

International Journal of Diplomacy and Economy, 2014 Vol.2 No.3, pp.231 - 237

Published online: 30 Sep 2014 *

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