In order to strengthen the productive base of the economy, the largely loss-making corporate sector must be urgently and profoundly restructured and privatisation be accelerated.

To fully benefit from the EU's trade measures, the countries need to increase competitiveness, diversify production, raise awareness among economic operators of the potential of the trade measures, facilitate a dialogue with business counterparts on the EU market and upgrade trade related institutions.

The rapporteur also stresses how important it is not to lose sight of the fact that, on strategic grounds, developing countries also have an interest in efficient State-owned enterprises in the production sector to provide resources and management instruments for use in exercising the State’s responsibility for attaining the priorities of national development, combating poverty, sustainability and preserving the environment, diversification of the economy and safeguarding foreign-policy interests.

It may be observed in passing that the Commission defines the ‘business sector’ as ‘private enterprises irrespective of their size and State-owned enterprises operating under market conditions’.

In order to enhance the capacity of the Community, the Member States and consequently the business community to prevent, to address and to respond to major network and information security risks, the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) was established in 2004 for a period of five years.[3] The Agency was established with the main goal of “ensuring a high and effective level of network and information security within the Community, (..) in order to develop a culture of network and information security for the benefit of the citizens, consumers, enterprises and public sector organisations of the European Union, thus co ...[+++]ntributing to the smooth functioning of the internal market”.

Meanwhile, the relatively high level of private debt, concentrated in non-financial corporations, remains on a downward path, partially due to sustained economic growth but also due to negative credit flow to the corporate sector as banks have tightened their lending standards particularly for the construction sector.