VMRO-DPMNE President Hristijan Mickoski called on the SDSM led Government to enter in immediate talks with the opposition to prepare economic measures to help the economy after the expected downturn caused by the coronavirus epidemic. Mickoski said that the measures taken so far were late, insufficient, and the Government often gave up on them shortly after announcing them.
The Government needs to abandon its policy of hubris, they should start listening to the opposition, the businesses, the citizens and stop with their etch a sketch policies that are abandoned weeks after being introduced. By now we should be talking not about the first but about a second set of measures, to enter into force after July. All the policies we have now end in July but the negative economic effects will reach their peak after July. We need an after-care package of measures to keep the economy alive, Mickoski said in a video address from his home. Both he and SDSM party leader Zoran Zaev are in self-isolation after being interviewed by a journalist who was later found to be Covid-19 positive.
Based on IMF data, Mickoski warned that Macedonia along with most of the world will have a GDP contraction in 2020, and a major recession will last until 2021.
Having in mind the expected drop in GDP of about 4 percent, and the increase in debt we are about to undertake, the drop in budget revenue, we will have a very challenging period not just in 2020 but in the years that will follow. Our debt will go up to 65-70 percent of GDP, which is an exceptionally high level, a historic high since our independence. This is why it is very important that we have a robust and surgically accurate intervention in our economy, Mickoski said.
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