Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski said industrial production was showing positive trends and that industrial turnover had increased by more than 5.5% compared with the third quarter of last year. He said these indicators were particularly significant given the state of the global economy and the European Union, North Macedonia’s largest trading partner.
Mickoski said the positive figures were not good news for those who, in his view, wanted the country to perform poorly.
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He said the indicators supported what the government had said from the outset: patience was needed, along with a gradual stabilization of the situation. After nearly two and a half years, he said, the country had reached zero, having previously been in a deep deficit. According to the prime minister, this is the starting point for anyone who takes power, and he now expects only growth.
Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM) leader Venko Filipče disputed the comments on the economy. He said North Macedonia ranked 41st in Europe for projected gross domestic product per capita, and that the International Monetary Fund had refuted Mickoski’s claims that it had the third-best economy in Europe. Filipče described this as the real state of the Macedonian economy, in contrast to what he called fairy tales about being in third place and lies about wages and pensions growing the fastest.
“What third-best economy? North Macedonia is at the bottom of the European rankings. According to the International Monetary Fund, it ranks 41st among Europe’s 48 economies for projected GDP per capita. The IMF forecasts this figure for North Macedonia at $11,762. In the region, Serbia, Montenegro and Albania are ahead of us. This is what we have been saying at SDSM over the past year, and the IMF has now confirmed it as well,” Filipče said.
Filipče added that the country’s economy remained far behind Europe’s wealthier economies, and that citizens experienced this gap every day.
