The first indicators in the economy with the change of government are really surprisingly positive in terms of the growth of industrial production, the manufacturing industry, the growth of GDP, the reduction of inflation… the collection of obligations by the institutions, the Customs, the IRS, and this is encouraging, says Prime Minister Hristijan Mickovski and indicates that he expects an increase in wages in the real sector.

The Central Bank’s decision to reduce the reference interest rate by 0.25 percent, according to Mickoski, means that slowly but surely in these two-three months the situation is stabilizing and the economy is slowly reviving.

Mickoski also emphasized that he expects even greater economic activity in the third and fourth quarter and more intense GDP growth and that the year will end better than the forecast of international financial institutions.

I expect it to continue like that, because the 500 million euro loan has now passed in the Parliament. I already expect the second half of October or the first half of November to be put into operation for the Macedonian economy… and for Macedonian companies to be able to use this loan of 250 million euros, said Mickoski after the visit to Kavadarci.

As he indicated, the conditions from the banks for using the loan are being analyzed with the Ministry of Finance.

I call on the banks to be in solidarity with business and the Macedonian economy and to have the interest rate with which this loan was taken, not to increase it and calculate with costs, because too many costs are calculated anyway. If this is not the case, then we will go with the Macedonian Development Bank and with the mechanisms we have, we will start this project, because we do not want the Macedonian economy to be additionally burdened, said Mickoski.

Regarding salaries, the Prime Minister said that the State Statistics Office with the data for July this year refuted the thesis of the former government of SDSM and DUI that with them salaries increased, and with VMRO-DPMNE and the coalition they will not increase.

The State Statistics Office with the figure it published for July, not only denied them, it also delivered two counter theses to it. First, we saw that wages in July, which was actually the first month of this government, continued to grow at the same and accelerated pace, compared to what happened in the past period. But the difference is that at that time the budget was looted on the backs of the citizens and inflation was in double digits, so the salary that the citizens received was devalued, said Mickoski.

Today, Mickoski stressed, wages are growing rapidly again, but inflation is the lowest in the region in August, compared to the same month last year and is at the level of 2.2 percent, and since the beginning of the year, as of August, it is less than 3.5 percent. .