(ANSA) - BELGRADE, JANUARY 16 - A "shrinking working-age population" is negative for the growth potential in several countries in Central- and Eastern Europe and a burden for government budgets. And states in the region might have to pursue in the future "a more open policy to economic migrants", says a new report of Erste Group Research.

The study, focused on the challenges for Central- and Eastern Europe in the next decade, recalls that "over the first decade after the transition," countries in the area "experienced a visible drop of fertility rate". Moreover, the scale of migration to other EU member states following EU accession "only strengthened the region's negative demographic trends," Erste wrote, adding that Romania exhibits the highest rate of emigration, with more than 3 million Romanians living in a different EU country, followed by Poland with more than 2.5 million. Other countries such as the Czech Republic and Slovenia saw much lower rates of emigration. To makes things worse, "those who decide to emigrate are generally among the more skilled people within their country." In the region, Erste noted, there is a growing problem of labour shortage, a situation that "has forced domestic companies to become more open and proactive in seeking workers abroad, especially in non-EU countries," in particular Ukraine and Serbia. However, together with increasing the labour market participation rate, countries in Central- and Eastern Europe "may have no other choice" in the future" than to pursue a more open policy to economic migrants if their labor markets continue to tighten," the report underlines. The study also notes a "risk of automation looming in the CEE labor market" and warns countries to start to prepare lower EU cohesion funds in the future, reserving a higher share of their national budgets for public investments. (ANSA).