Prudent macroeconomic policies Macedonia pursued over many years helped the country to weather the crisis better than most other countries. 2009 GDP contraction and budget deficit were modest, and both, public and external debt are at modest levels, World Bank resident representative, Mr. Marcus Repnik, said Friday.

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He believes Macedonia has achieved strong macroeconomic results and expects that the country would remain on-track the projected deficit for 2010.

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– Budget deficit is one of the four elements of the macroeconomic framework, alongside with economic growth and low public and external debt. We are living in a time of great economic uncertainty, and Macedonia is not alone in this situation. All countries confronted the challenges and should adjust to the newly occurred situation. Taking into account the strong macroeconomic results in Macedonia, I have no doubt such trend would continue in future, Repnik said.

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According to Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Zoran Stavreski, there would be no deviations from the projected budget deficit this year.

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– Government, as so far, has shown it is reliable and disciplined when it is a matter of observing budget discipline and realizing targeted deficit. Having in mind that better conditions for the economic activity are expected in the second half of the year, we will adhere to what we have envisaged and set in our long-term program as regards the Budget and the public debt level. Therefore, target of 2.5% budget deficit will be met, Stavreski pointed out.

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Exiting the recession, he said, does not mean that crisis ends the same day. It means that future prospects are improving so as for positive growth to be realized and economy to gradually recover.

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– There will be periods and months when production might realize negative growth rates as in February. However, there will be more and more periods and months when production will show positive growth rates, contributing to achieving the projected growth of 2% this year and probably approximately 3-4% next year, Stavreski said.

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According to him, Thursday’s reduction of interest rates on CB bills would have positive effects on the economy.

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– I believe reduction of CB bills reflects the improved situation in the external sector, better level of foreign exchange reserves and better indicators of the economy as a whole. This will contribute to overall efforts to reduce interest rates on credits, being the key for improvement of liquidity of the Macedonian economy, Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Zoran Stavreski, said.(MIA)

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