Dear friends,
Welcome to the winter edition of Emerging Macedonia magazine. This edition highlights foreign direct investment developments in Macedonia and the region, amongst other topics. There are a number of reasons to further explore this topic. Many of our members are foreign direct investors in the country; for local companies, one
of the major growth opportunities is to deliver goods and services to new investors.
Attraction of FDI to the country is clearly one of the major aims of the Macedonian government. Despite certain
scepticism in the beginning and various challenges over the years – mainly due to the world financial crisis –
we’ve recently begun seeing results from those efforts. A large number of new investors have settled here, creating a significant number of new jobs and contributing to a constant rise in GDP. Not surprisingly, Macedonia is
now cited as a success story in FDI attraction policy and is the envy of its regional competitors.
The initial group of investors were mainly motivated by the abundance of low-cost, unskilled labor, creating
some concerns in Macedonian society. However, it should be noted that just working in a foreign investment
environment significantly improves local labor qualifications and increases employees’ competitiveness for their
next job.
More recently, we’ve see increased investor interest in sectors requiring more educated and qualified employees. In particular, a number of software development companies have started operations and some outsourcing
and call center projects are on their way. These businesses may significantly impact the local labor market, since
they tend to require university degrees and fluency in multiple languages. In the long run, such projects should
stimulate improvements in local university and foreign language education to keep pace with their needs.
Still, a lot of work needs to be done by both government and business to further boost the attractiveness of
Macedonia as an investment destination. We see a sustained Government commitment to this strategy and AmCham is doing its part to support this trend via knowledge-sharing and advocacy in a number of relevant areas.
Next, in late February, we’ll hold a seminar on “Customer Service as a Marketing Tool”, which will be extremely
helpful for both international and local companies here. Understanding client needs and creating organizational
capacity to meet them is key to company success in an internationalized business environment.
Enjoy reading!
Miroslav Marchev
President AmCham Macedonia’s Board of Directors
American Chamber of Commerce in Macedonia • Ivo Lola Ribar 59A-1/15, 1000 Skopje, Macedonia
Phone: (+389 2) 3216 714; Fax (389) 2 3246 950 • [email protected] www.amcham.com.mk
Emerging Macedonia Winter 2015 Issue 44
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