Skopje, 24 September 2021 (MIA) – Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Fatmir Bytyqi on Friday via video link attended an event where the South East Europe Competitiveness Outlook 2021, organized by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), was presented. North Macedonia has improved in eight out of 15 policy areas in the third edition of the OECD South East Europe Competitiveness Outlook 2021, conducted in the period between 2019-2020, compared to the edition issued in 2018, said Bytyqi’s office. “This means that economic policies are in good shape creating better competitiveness for North Macedonia. However, instead of competing against each other, we need to focus on increasing regional competitiveness and creating rising growth rates in the region,” Bytyqi said. The eight areas North Macedonia recorded improvement include trade and tax policy, employment policy, energy and agriculture policy, environment policy, anticorruption policies and the innovation and technology policy. North Macedonia, Deputy PM Bytyqi said, is ranked first in the region in three areas: trade policy (subcategory e-trade), energy policy and employment policy and in 10 areas it is above or at the same level as other countries analyzed in the outlook. “Trade policies are developed at high level due to implementing commitments stemming from the CEFTA agreement, service market liberalization and due to taking concrete steps in liberalization and facilitating registration procedures, stay and employment of foreign nationals. E-trade also records extremely good results making is first in the region,” said Bytyqi. As regards energy policy, North Macedonia fares better than the Western Balkans countries, he said. “It doesn’t mean we are done, on the contrary, the government is fully aware and fully committed to implementing and transposing directives of the so called third energy package of the Energy Community Secretariat,” he said. According to him, employment policies, especially those targeting young people, have been producing results.  “Youth Guarantee is one of the best and most successful measures recognized in the report. It has resulted in the country recording a historic low rate in unemployment of people aged 15-29,” Bytyqi stated. The Deputy PM said the government has a very serious analytic approach to reports of this kind, adding that all challenges noted in the document are being considered in detail. “We work actively to improve our performances in several dimensions including access to financing, in education, tourism and transport,” Bytyqi said in his presentation at the event. The in-depth analysis was prepared by the Southeast Europe Program of the OECD, which for over 20 years has been supporting regional economies in creating and implementing reforms to encourage growth, investments and employment, said Karim Dahou, in charge of global affairs at the OECD.