DESPOTOVSKI: WE OPENED A NEW PROGRAM TO SUPPORT MACEDONIAN COMPANIES

DESPOTOVSKI: WE OPENED A NEW PROGRAM TO SUPPORT MACEDONIAN COMPANIES

Domestic medium-sized and large companies have the opportunity to strengthen their export capacities and competitiveness in foreign markets, to become part of the supply chain of foreign companies in the country, as well as to increase their investment readiness. TIDZ in partnership with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, and supported by the Swiss Secretariat for Economic Affairs, SECO is launching a new initiative designed to support Macedonian companies. At today’s presentation of the Public Call for Technical Assistance for the Development of Suppliers, the director of TIDZ, Jovan Despotovski, pointed out that this is the beginning of a completely new program to support Macedonian companies.

“With today’s event, we mark the beginning of a completely new program, that is, a completely new chapter in the functioning of not only the Directorate for Health and Safety, but also of the Government in general. For more than 20 years there has been talk about how to integrate domestic companies into the supply systems, for cooperation with large foreign companies not only in the country, but also in general in the region and globally, and this is the first step in that direction practically. This means that if we have been talking in the future tense, now we are already talking in the present tense about things that are happening,” Despotovski said.

With this public call, 10 Macedonian companies will be covered in the first phase.

“This is just the first step. Technical assistance implies that companies will get the opportunity to use consultants, to become more competitive and to be part of the supply chain of foreign companies in the country. But they will also receive technical assistance for the preparation of investment plans and, in the next step, to use all the opportunities offered by the Government for co-financing – the Law on Financial Support, the laws that regulate the operation of the Directorate. So the financial support after the end of this cycle follows, so I expect at this stage at least 10 companies that would go through the stage of preparing investment plans, some of them in the near future, which means that in the next 2-3 years they will become part of the family of TIDZ,” Despotovski said.

The project manager of IFC, Eugene Osmoneski, emphasized that this kind of support is also available in the region and is already producing excellent results.

The objective of this program is to improve the integration of Western Balkan companies in intra-regional and European value chains by increasing the connectivity with those companies in the European regions as well as strengthening the capabilities of manufacturing companies to qualify as suppliers through private sector initiatives. and the public sector. So far we have excellent results in the region. 62 companies that passed the technical support program, 547 new jobs created, 233 million euros of own investments as well as an increase in exports of 65%,” emphasized Osmonescu.

Only registered commercial companies with dominant Macedonian ownership, whose annual revenues are not below two million euros or have a minimum of 50 employees in the last two years, entities that have not had losses in the last two calendar years, as well as those against whom no bankruptcy or liquidation proceedings have been initiated.

It is also a condition that those who apply have settled overdue obligations based on public duties and contributions and that no procedures have been initiated against them for forced execution of overdue monetary claims.

TIDZ will hold four more info sessions in several cities across the country by the end of this month.

The call was published on December 29, 2023 and will last until February 15, 2024, until 2:00 p.m.