Economic overview of the country

MEF membership comprises entrepreneurs, SMEs, large companies, employers' associations at local and sector level as well as NGOs. Our members operate in all sectors of industry in Montenegro.

Unlike well-developed industrial sector in the past, Montenegro today recognizes tourism, agriculture, trade, energy, information technologies, telecommunications and financial services as main pillars underpinning the country's economic development. These sectors contribute the most to GDP and employ the largest number of workers in real sector. The transition affected not only the structure of economy but also the size of businesses resulting in big companies be replaced with newly established small enterprises.

If we analyze the structure of enterprises in Montenegro it is obvious that the majority of enterprises are small and micro (over 97%) with small portion of medium and large enterprises. According to World Bank, New Business Density Indicator measures the number of newly registered limited liability companies per 1.000 working-age people (15-24 years). Montenegro’s score in 2014 was 6.9.

Montenegro’s geographical position and the openness of its economy are some of the positive factors that make Montenegro attractive to foreign direct investments. From 2006 to 2009 Montenegro was a leader in the region regarding FDI but the economic downturn caused by global economic crisis had negative influence on such trends. Still, with a few current infrastructure projects, Montenegro is making positive steps forward and according to the Ministry of Finance the average GDP growth for 2015-2018 is projected at 3,8%.

Despite positive shifts and trends, 2016 is still characterized by great number of obstacles businesses face. The main barriers to enabling business environment in Montenegro, seen by business sector, are: collection of receivables, insolvency, access to financial services etc. Wanting to make its own contribution to improvement of business environment in Montenegro, MEF identified 5 groups of key business barriers (inadequate regulatory framework, access to financial resources, informal economy, corruption, education and labor market mismatch) with number of recommendations for each group.