Macedonia Officially Out of Recession

Finance Miister Zoran Stavreski told media that this meant that the anti-crisis measures initiated by the government last year had been successful. He boasted that the government last year had achieved the third best economic result in Europe measured according to GDP, amid the turmoil of the global economic crisis.

“We believe that this contributes to the credibility of government policies and projections for the coming period, in which it is expected that Macedonia's economy will see a positive 2 per cent growth for this year,” said Staverski, expressing his confidence that growth as high as 4 per cent would be seen in 2012.

However, observers say that the latest positive figure does not mean that the economy has recovered completely, because annually the country’s GDP last year declined by 0.7 per cent.

“We cannot say that Macedonia is recovering. For that we need a solid base, a strong economy based on strong companies that we simply don’t have. Our businesses are unable to boost the GDP because they  face difficulties themselves and some are unable to pay wages. This decreases the consumption that drags the GDP down,” Shenaj Mustafa from the Centre for Economic Analysis told local daily Utrinski Vesnik.

He argued that the effects of the crisis will continue to be felt due to the poor economic situation in Europe and particularly in neighbouring Greece, which will hamper the export of Macedonian goods on those markets.

The opposition Social Democrats also voiced their doubt regarding the positive predictions made by the government. They openly suspect that the latest official figures are not accurate and that the situation is worse than the government claims.

They point at the still high unemployment rate, which rises above 32 per cent, and at the very low level of FDI, some €180 million last year, half of the 2008 FDI figure.