During his press conference on Saturday, VMRO-DPMNE President Hristijan Mickoski revealed the extent of the economic damage and disruption caused by the now removed Zoran Zaev Government. Mickoski pointed to the policies hostile to business pursued by Zaev, especially his now repealed progressive taxation scheme, as the main reason for the poor economic results, but there is also the rampant corruption and racketeering.

The worst effects were in the taxation. Income tax revenue is more than 24 percent below projections. If it weren’t for the tax increase, and the brazen theft of our citizens and companies, the personal income receipts would have failed by similar rate from the projections, Mickoski said.

Another problem with the economy pointed by the opposition leader is the fact that Macedonia is growing at the same rate with the European Union average, even though it is far less developed and has both much catching up to do and room to grow.

In 2006-2008, we grew by 5.7 percent, while the EU grew by 2.3 percent. Now we are at or below EU levels of growth, Mickoski said.

The third main indicator is the exceptionally low haul of foreign direct investments, which Mickoski also attributed to Zaev’s ill fated tax hike. In Q3 of 2019, Macedonia received only 113 million EUR in foreign direct investments, half of the rate received in 2018 and incomparably worse than, for example, Serbia.

Mickoski also pointed to the drop in industrial production, and especially in the number of workers in manufacturing, as additional evidence of the overall economic decline. “At the coming elections, we must defeat the model of procurement contracts signed under the table, lies, fraud and corruption. We need to build an economy based on technology, an investment tiger in the Balkans. Starting with April 12th, the Renewal of Macedonia will begin”, Mickoski promised.