15th January 2019, Skopje – NATO membership had huge impact in other countries in the region. I can see no reason why this would not be the case in Macedonia. Minister of Finance, Dragan Tevdovski, pointed this out at the opening of the Euromoney Central & Eastern European Forum, taking place in Vienna, Austria.
He said that in most countries, when comparing the years before and after NATO membership, FDIs at least doubled as a share of GDP and in some countries, like Bulgaria, they even tripled.
He also said that in the numerous contacts with the investors, they were very much interested in the country’s progress to NATO and EU, in addition to the economic feature, which were solid indeed.
– The economic implications of this progress are immense. In a historically unstable region, considering the events in my country in the last few years, NATO membership puts a stamp of stability and long-term sustainability. This will simply and quickly eliminate the doubt and the fear investors had in the past. Therefore, I believe that economic benefits will be sizable and quick enough – higher foreign investment in my country, coupled with domestic investment, will undoubtedly result in higher exports, higher employment and wages and higher living standard for our citizens, Tevdovski said.
As for the macroeconomic stability, Tevdovski underlined that the Government was committed to implementing gradual fiscal consolidation, i.e. falling budget deficits in the medium-term in order to stabilize public debt. At the same time, revenue performance was excellent. As he pointed out, tax revenues were exactly in line with budget.
-Combined with other economic data, strong performance of all tax revenues and social contributions is a clear proof that economic activity is recovering very well, Tevdovski said.
He underlined the significant achievements of the country as regards fiscal transparency, as the highest level of control over public finance management. As he pointed out, in the past year, Citizens’ Budgets web-application was prepared, public sector arrears were published, final preparations were being made for the Treasury on real-time basis platform on which the public could have insight in the Treasury payments in real time. In addition, Macedonia will very soon become one of countries in the world to adhere to SDDS+ (Special Data Dissemination Standard Plus), which is by far the highest international data dissemination standard.
Governor of the National Bank, Anita Angelovska – Bezhoska, also took part in “Euromoney”. Euromoney Central & Eastern European Forum is one of the leading events in the field of finance in Europe. 1,300 participants – Ministers of Finance, Governors of Central banks, heads of financial institutions and investors – are registered at this years’ Euromoney Forum. Discussions at the Forum are focused on the most important market issues in Central and Eastern Europe.
During the Forum, Minister of Finance Tevdovski will also have meetings with international investors and financial institutions.