WELCOME ON THE WEBSITE OF USAID’S MACEDONIAN BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT ACTIVITY!

In order to sustain the achieved momentum in the economic sector and to build on the tangible success of previous USAID support to improving the business environment in Macedonia, USAID established the Macedonian Business Environment Activity. Download the project one-pager here.

The overall objective of the project is to strengthen the enabling environment for doing business in Macedonia in order to encourage business formation and growth and address the issue of high unemployment.

The project activities are split into 5 tasks:

A: Public-private dialogue and facilitation of trade in goods and services focuses on:
a) assisting the public-private dialogue in Macedonia, especially in the area of the country’s economic policy, necessary for lifting the quality of inputs in the creation of the Macedonian economic policy to a higher level, and involving the private sector representatives more intensively in the efforts for improving Macedonia’s business climate;
b) supporting the efforts for trade facilitation in Macedonia, which include: improving border agency efficiency and facilitating introduction of customs single window, supporting the implementation of the Customs Law, facilitating and supporting regional cooperation among customs authorities, facilitating intellectual property rights protection, and improving Macedonia’s export promotion and trade in services statistics;
c) assisting Macedonia in formulation of integrated economic strategies by institutionalizing the process of creation of economic strategies, improving ministry and agency cross-coordination and building private sector capacity to help develop and implement economic policies.

B: Legal and regulatory framework focuses on:
a) application and enforcement of existing laws and regulations and institutionalization of a dialogue between the public and private sector, which are aimed at improving the investment and business environment and reducing the reasons for the gray economy;
b) providing support to ongoing initiatives and in drafting new and improved primary and secondary legislation;
c) introducing clear principles and best practices in the work of corporations and other players on the Macedonian market.

C: Public capital investment and decentralization focuses on:
a) better use of financial potentials within the budget;
b) increasing investments in the public sector;
c) improving public sector products and services:
d) increasing overall investment activities and development of the country;
e) increasing municipality budgets, higher rates of investments in municipalities and faster economic development of municipalities;
f) increasing financial report transparency of local self-government units.

D: Restructuring of the labor market focuses on:
a) facilitating faster economic growth by engagement of the free labor force, creating an articulated and flexible labor market, reducing unemployment, improving the social environment, long-term improvement of productivity, reduction of corruption, improving the overall social relations and society cohesion, reduction of brain-drain by creating opportunities for productive employment, especially for the young;
b) reform of the pension and insurance system by efficient supervision of the second pillar by the existing regulator – MAPAS.

E: Capacity building and cross-cutting initiatives focuses on:
a) potential spin-off by the end of the project of an organized team of experts that can continue to provide assistance to GOM and other entities in further improving and development of the enabling environment for doing business in Macedonia;
b) capacity building and support in implementation for regulatory agencies and developing think tanks that provide basic economic analysis to the GOM and building up the capacity of business associations to help the GOM identify and solve impediments to growth.