One year of Zaev’s government, one year of economic collapse

One year has passed since the formation of Zaev’s government, and we are witnessing strong early signals of slowdown in the economy, as well as having no clear concept where we want it to move. Disagreement in key economic departments, and among the leading people of those departments about which way to go. Thus, one day they propose a progressive tax, the very next day there is a row between the Minister of Finance and the vice-president of the government for economy about how high that tax should be, just to abandon the idea on the third day. One day, foreign investments are criticized, the next day Zaev goes to visit those investments.
This lack of direction strongly influences the uncertainty, which is one of the key segments in economic planning. The economy in Macedonia, which was one of the best in the region, with steady economic growth, construction growth, gross domestic product growth, wage growth, pensions and a state that has consistently reduced the number of unemployed people, new jobs were created in Macedonia even in conditions of political crisis, and the opening of new jobs was subsidized, especially for young people, but after only one year of Zaev’s government, the economy suffered a collapse.
Macedonia’s economy from the leading economy in the region, after just one year, is now at the bottom of Europe. In the past years, SDSM and Zaev have repeatedly criticized Macedonia’s debt, they have repeatedly criticized VMRO-DPMNE’s obligation to the Republic of Macedonia, and in the first half of 2018 Zaev’s government has only a net 312m euros in borrowing. In just one year, the economy suffered a standstill.
It is obvious that the Zaev’s entire government has no coordination, and the “advisors” for foreign investment have no success. And how should they have it when they are on the United States blacklist? Zaev’s government does not create new jobs, on the contrary, we are witnessing the closing of factories, and the workers are completely forgotten.
With these catastrophic policies and unjustified borrowing of the stat,e we have a complete slowdown of the economy. Zoran Zaev’s government is not doing its job, obviously the entire government is a government of one issue and has completely forgotten the promised projects from the election campaign. The only project of this government is the increase in excise goods and the increase in excise taxes on fuels, which is counterproductive. Citizens have higher expenses, and in conditions of economic instability, citizens spend less, and thus less and less money is flowing into the budget, which is not implemented anyway. Ministers from this government are not able to spend money from the budget they collect themselves. We do not have a single capital investment, we do not have a single project, no reconstructed hospital, school or kindergarten. Social policy is catastrophic, and the health department is totally forgotten. Being a minister in the Zoran zaev’s government means that the working hours are from 10 am to 2 pm, and there are no new projects at all. No work shows no results.
Since it has been in power, this government has raised up to 650m euros in loans, and 225m euros are on the account of the National Bank, which is a direct damage to the citizens of Macedonia, because for those 225m euros the state pays interest, and there is no capital investment with this money, and these millions of euros are not used for the development of the economy at all. Unfortunately, the implementation of capital investments for the first quarter of 2018 is only 4%, and it should be at least 20%.
Another indicator that the economy is not on the right path is that prices in April in 2017 and prices in April in 2018 increased by 1.4 percent. With such an economic policy in the future, prices will rise and wages will be reduced.
Citizens will directly feel their own economic debacle in the second half of 2018, this economic disaster, because good economic policies are still felt at the moment. The new jobs, foreign investments and the correct economic policies of the previous government are still driving the economy, but very soon the citizens will feel the negative effects of the one-year rule of Zoran Zaev and his government.

We already spent our winter food supplies, what now?

Aleksandar Nikoloski