Skopje, 14th March 2014 (MIA) – New investments creating several thousands of new jobs are planned to be realized this year in municipalities in which there have been no foreign investments so far, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Zoran Stavreski, announced in an interview for MRTV.
– Several major investments are announced for this year. They will contribute to creating additional several thousands of new jobs. At this stage, we can, of course, not talk about any names, however, we can say that our goal is part of these investments to be realized in cities, in municipalities in which there have been no foreign investments so far, all to the end of creating jobs for larger number of people, Stavreski pointed out.
He went on by saying that the efforts the Government has put for many years have resulted in Macedonia becoming a success story as regards foreign investments. – We have several global companies established their presence, which have decided to invest for the second time, some of them for the third time, in new factories. As a result of the presence of these global brands, their suppliers also decide to come. They say: given that “Johnson Matthey” and “Johnsons Controls”, “Kemet Electronics” or “Dräxlmaier” have decided to come to Macedonia, some of them have even decided to repeat their investments, it speaks in favour of the good business environment in the country, it confirms that the Government is serious and ensures transparency and good business conditions, low taxes, there is skilled labour force in the country, free economic zones are well equipped in infrastructure terms. All this inspires the investors with confidence, Stavreski underlined.
He also announced that in the course of this year, around 6,000 people will be employed with the existing factories alone, which, together with the previous 6,500 people employed, there will be from 12,500 to 13,000 employments in the free zones, in the industrial zones. This, according to Minister Stavreski, is a considerable number, which, as he said, has contributed a lot to unemployment reduction, being one of the main goals of the Government. – We have attained this rate by reducing unemployment to below 30%, while the most recent rate of 28.7% shows that, step by step even in such troubled times, like in the previous years, we have reduced unemployment, Stavreski said.