REGIONAL COOPERATION AND ECONOMIC INTEGRATION

SOME ASPECTS OF TRADE STATISTICS AND REPORTING
regions, including western Balkan. Regarding to the specifics of the separate areas, goals
of the regional approach are usually reflected in strengthening of the peace and stability,
democracy development and ownership rights, respecting human and minorities’ rights,
regional cooperation etc.
In spite of the regional cooperation, EU also implies economic integration, which is realized
in the area including many different countries in order to remove any barriers in movement
of goods, services and production factors and people. 1
Regional integration is political objective with special meaning for the European Union.
It is a factor that influences realization of the other key political objectives as integrated
market, monetary union, expansion and competition ability of the European economy, etc.
This procedure is relatively slow, but, „information for the value of the regional integration
show that it is high according to the average labor productivity in the European countries“ 2 .
Consequences of this is high amount of income per capita, „agglomerations effects, from
researching shows 64% of variances in productivity among European regains.” 3 Corrado
and others point out the importance of regional connections, vis-a-vi connections between
countries, pointing out the regional similarities and differences. 4
2. International differences in accounting and financial reporting
Fast changes in manufacturing and information technologies as well as expansion of
international trade and capital markets, have resulted in growth of the multinational
corporations which are forced to deal with intensified movement of capital, labor force and
markets. These changes are accompanied by fluctuating price factors, fluctuating interest
rates and exchange rates as well as domestic and international taxes and regulatory changes.
Besides that, basic inflation and changes of specific industrial goals have increased prices
of many assets and have increased operations’ and investments’ risk.
This situation in which companies operate requires larger scope of capital. That capital
is always provided by the companies for higher prices. Due to changes in prices and
cash flows there is also increased risk of keeping liquid assets. All of these factors have
influenced companies to require new ways of credit finance and ways of controlling risks
trough derivative transactions and hedging.
In the European Union about 7000 European listed companies were report their 2005
consolidated figures under IFRS for the first time. The adoption of IFRS in Europe is
considered as the most revolutionary financial reporting development since Pacioli’s
double-entry bookkeeping, even more revolutionary than the adoption of the Fourth and
Seventh EU Directive. 5 For now on, companies in Europe and worldwide will speak one
accounting language.
1
Kigan i Grin: Global Marketing, Prentice Hall, 2000
2
De Benedictis i dr. (2005), pp. 13.
3 Ciccone (2002), pp. 220
4 Corrado i dr. (2005), pp. 156
5 Hoogendorn (2006), pp. 23
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