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In the focus РУБРИКА
ly reflect on the opportunity for external The businessmen also indicated the
borrowing, as well as on the image of this other consequences such as refraining
country as a favorable investment destina- from buying, which means a fall of con-
tion. The companies will not be spared as sumption and trade sales in catering. This,
well, which was shown by the assessment as they say, contributes for the traders to
of Fitch for Procredit Bank, the only one literally “eat each other” with very low
in our country which has requested such margins only to survive on the market.
an assessment, not because of its results, This is particularly expressed in the small
but because of the impaired rating of this cities.
country.
Still, if one judges according to the
One can expect that due to Macedonia’s profits in the first semester, the crisis
rating, the indebtedness of the companies did not reflect equally on all parts of the
can also become more expensive when economy. Hence, for example, in this pe-
they take loans for equipment or for other riod the banks presented total profits of
needs. Although this was the case also be- approximately 46.5 million Euros, which is
fore the report by Fitch. a growth by 39.3% compared to the same
period last year. According to the National
“I know a company which had an agree- Bank of the Republic of Macedonia, this is
ment on equipment of 300 thousand Eu- due to the reduced interest expenses and
ros, with agreed interest rate of 4 percent, the reduced total impairment of the value
however when they wanted to sign the of the funds (the loans) and the nonfinan-
agreement, they were told that the inter- cial assets (the foreclosed property) of the
est rate is seven percent because Mace- banks.
donia is an insecure country”, says Angel
Dimitrov, President of the Organization of However, one should consider that the
Employers whose members include more banking sector this year was exposed to
than 1,000 companies from 15 sectors with great temptations when in the midst of
more than 70,000 employees. According to the political crisis, there was a significant
him, the companies in our country this withdrawal of savings. The timely pay-
year face with all the problems they had so ment of all receivables contributed for the
far, such as illiquidity, insufficient finance, avoidance of any consequences on trust,
the small market, the gap in the labour and already in August, what was with-
market, etc., however in addition with the drawn last months, slowly started to re-
consequences of the political crisis. turn to the bank accounts. Still, the price
of such trust was not low – according to
“The political crisis influences in many the data from the National Bank of the
ways, and it influences very negatively Republic of Macedonia, together with the
– mostly on the courage for new invest- interventions in the last week of July, the
ments, regardless of whether it is a matter total interventions of the National Bank of
of domestic or foreign investments”, say the Republic of Macedonia in the summer
the businessmen.
October 2016 35
