VMRO-DPMNE President Hristijan Mickoski took to the airwaves to urge the Government to adopt immediate measures that would prevent a major economic downturn as result of the coronavirus.
In an interview with Sitel TV, Mickoski warned that today 12.000 workers have been given sent on an open-ended leave in two manufacturing plants alone, not to mention the devastation suffered by the tourism and hospitality industry.

Our measures are robust and they are focused on two areas – saving businesses and jobs and keeping the budget solvent. Both lines will require money and both need to be pursued immediately. Every day we wait will lead to greater losses which will have to be covered by the citizens, and not the SDSM party, Mickoski said.

VMRO-DPMNE is proposing that the public budget assumes half of the gross payroll costs for all employees in the worst hit industries, and that the payment of loans is canceled at least for March.

Businesses don’t feel that someone is standing by them. We need to temporarily freeze the payment of interest loans to the banks and borrowers, which would be in the banks’ best interest too. This move we are proposing would make it clear to the businesses that they have a partner standing by them, Mickoski said.

He insisted that the payment of loans for the “lost month of March” is not just frozen or postponed but canceled altogether. The one step the Government took which Mickoski proposed earlier was to ask companies that are liquid to pay their taxes early.

The opposition leader offered that party officials such as interim Deputy Finance Minister Gordana Dimitrieska Kocoska and former Finance Minister Trajko Slaveski are included in a team that would prepare a loan program and distribute the funding in a way that would help mitigate the damage the best.

Another important measure that VMRO-DPMNE is proposing is a public relations campaign to purchase Macedonian products and support Macedonian companies.