4th February 2016, Skopje – Considering the developments on the political scene and the political crisis, we have ended 2015 successfully and the economy was, in a way, a bright spot in a year in which there were not many bright spots.This was announced by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Zoran Stavreski, during yesterday’s debate on TV Nova pertaining to the economic developments.
“However, growth achieved in the second half of last year, especially in many sectors, helped Macedonia to be again among the countries with the highest economic growth in Europe, among five, six, seven countries with the highest economic growth. We expect for growth to range between 3.3% and 3.5% in 2015. That is approximately the growth realized in the first nine months of the last year, a period for which the results are announced, i.e. 3.4% growth, driven to a great extent by the growth achieved in the industry in the period between August and September. Growth in this period exceeded 11%, as opposed to the negative growth rates in the second quarter of 2015 when, due to the political crisis, such development was substantially felt in the industry in the country, hence we experienced a negative growth in this period. Despite this, growth in the industry was favourable, as usual in the past several years. Growth in the industry and the construction sectors was supported by substantial capital investments and projects from the Budget of the Republic of Macedonia. A lot of domestic companies are engaged in the realization of capital investments as regards the construction, as well as small-scale industries and small businesses. High export by the foreign companies is also to be mentioned, hence, all in all, 2015 was a good year. Taking into account the social circumstances, the maximum was achieved. We have also started 2016 with this favourable development, thus creating grounds to believe that solid economic growth will be realized this years as well”, Stavreski underlined.