Washington, 24th October (MIA) – Macedonia is one of the countries showing most progress in WB Doing Business Report, assuming 23rd position, achieving a jump which is unusual and only few countries have managed to realize, says Tea Trumbic, World Bank’s Private Sector Development Department specialist. Trumbic, who works on the Doing Business Project, added that results Republic of Macedonia achieved was due to over 30 reforms implemented, being analyzed in the past 7-8 years.
– We are aware that a lot has been done. We have analyzed more than 30 reforms implemented in Macedonia, and such reforms cover a wide range, not only administrative measures, such as reduction of costs for business start-up, but also several legislative solutions which are very difficult to be realized. For instance, legislation on protection of investors has been really strengthened, which had its effects on the Macedonian rating. We have witnessed that activities are not slowing down, Government is committed to reforms in many of these indicators, such as e-payment of taxes, Tea Trumbic told MIA.
Macedonia is fifth on the list of countries showing most improvement in the conditions for doing business in the past years. Only Georgia, Rwanda, Belarus and Burkina Faso are on higher positions than Macedonia.
Trumbic said that Macedonia was the leader in the region as regards the reforms implemented, among other, reforms in the construction sector and facilitation of regulations on issuance of construction permits, something that was very difficult to be changed in the neighbouring countries.
– An indicator Macedonia has shown success in, indicator very difficult to be improved in the region, is the issuance of construction permits. In 2005, the entire procedure to obtain construction permit in Macedonia comprised 20 steps, and it lasted for a year, however, in the past years, four reforms were implemented to improve this indicator and the procedure today comprises only 10 steps and takes about four months. It is a relatively short period of time for issuance of a construction permit, since we believe that certain regulations needs to be properly implemented. If compared with the neighbouring countries, Serbia, Croatia, they all have significantly higher costs for issuance of a construction permit. Hence, we have observed significant progress here, although progress has been achieved at all indicators, however this one shows great success in the region, Trumbic said.
Doing Business Report deals with the regulatory framework and how favourable it is for the business of SMEs, which are the base of the economy. Macedonia is placed among the freest economies in the world, such as Germany, Japan, Estonia and Latvia. As areas that deteriorate Macedonia’s rating on the list, Trumbic indicated the procedure for getting electricity and the price of import and export, saying that they were better than in the neighbouring countries, but however below the level of the countries being rank higher, Macedonia being ranked among them now.
She went on that WB/IFC Doing Business Report does not measure foreign direct investments in the ranked countries, but, anyhow, when preparing the annual report, they determined direct relation between the ease of doing business for SMEs and attracting foreign investments and the economic growth as a whole.
– We are aware from the experience in other countries that there is a strong link between reforms that facilitate regulations on companies and the economic growth or job creation. This year, we have conducted a researched on the linkage between the ranking in the Doing Business Report and the foreign direct investments and have confirmed the linkage thereto.
Countries that are best-ranked in the Doing Business Report have, in average, 50 times higher level of foreign direct investments than the countries being ranked among the lowest 10% on the ranking list, Trumbic said.
Оваа вест е достапна и на:
