The fifth set of anti-crisis measures to focus on the liquidity of companies to survive the coronary pandemic, to open partially closed sectors such as tourism and to adopt protocols according to the WHO for their smooth operation, wage subsidies of 14,500 denars to continue at least 2021, to increase the Development Bank’s fund for low-interest loans, to import raw materials with zero percent excise duty, to provide funding for companies investing in digitalization, to abolish the profit tax by 2022 for the most affected companies and to annul all decisions on a moratorium on detailed urban plans in municipalities that prevent construction investments worth over 500 million euros.
These are the requests for economic recovery that the Economic Chamber of Northwest Macedonia (ECNWM) will submit to the Government on Wednesday, after previously announcing them at a press conference.
According to ECNWM, in order to return the economy to a normal trajectory, the Government should focus primarily on vaccination against COVID-19, but also on the realization of capital expenditures of at least 85 percent.
As ECNWM President Nebi Hoxha, pointed out, we ended 2020 with a recession of minus four percent, which is the biggest economic decline in the country since its existence. More than 4,000 companies went bankrupt in the first six months alone, most of them micro and small, and about 40,000 jobs were lost. Now, on the other hand, we are facing a reduced quality of life due to the increase in prices and the increase of the consumer basket, which reached 550 euros.
There are many reasons that caused the recession, but the most important, said Hoxha, the low realization of budget capital expenditures, the reduction of 7.9 percent in the manufacturing industry, the decline in final consumption, the reduction of exports by 29.4 percent and the reduction of investments in the private sector.
