Skopje, 23 July 2024 (MIA) - Businesses will go after the funds with the lowest interest rate, that’s normal, but in this way, we will only create a temporary solution to the situation. Everything must be bundled together, funds should be provided in support of businesses, but all burning issues that we constantly point to should be solved as well. In that way, we will create a quality corporate environment in which the state will hold a regulatory post while the business community will lead an equal competition on the ground, without the meddling of the state, the head of the Economic Chamber, Branko Azeski, said on Tuesday in relation to the EUR 250 million that businesses are to receive from the loan from Hungary.

Azeski said Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski will meet him at the Economic Chamber on Thursday to discuss the loan from Hungary, while the Chamber, he said, will request that the funds are available under acceptable conditions. He stressed that preference should be given to the development of exports, innovation and productivity.  

In answer to a journalist’s question, Azeski stressed the importance of finding a way to ensure that funds for capital investments cannot be repurposed for social transfers at the end of the year without the approval of the business community. The head of the Economic Chamber also said that if the contract with Bechtel-Enka is to be revised, it should include as many Macedonian companies as possible in its realization.

“We aren’t interested in anything apart from access to fresh capital, to various tools that will supplement the investment activities, but that issue shouldn’t be selected, it should be included in a package that will mean improvement of the overall corporate environment,” Azeski said. 

Photo: MIA