Shefki Aliti, Vice-President of the Mining Association within the Economic Chamber of Macedonia, at the Conference “Macedonian Perspectives: How to Get to Europe?”, organized by CIVIL and MICIC, spoke about the business climate in the country, the challenges that are ahead of us in the upcoming period until the accession negotiations, and also about the conditions that Macedonia will have to fulfill in order to become part of the European family.
“If that is the greatest wish in Macedonia, it is for us the businessmen, to be Europeans. However, the road is very difficult. It was very difficult. I will refer back to the year 1992-1993 when in front of my own eyes, the famous Todor Petrov placed the trucks in Gevgelia and closed the border with Greece. This happened in front of my own eyes. It was then that we ruined the relations with Greece, with our neighbor.
In order for us to solve these problems, we need to realistically see the needs of the businesses. To see the needs of the foreign investors for them to come here, because we have lost them. In the past 3-4 years, our economic zones have been left without factories. We are not building factories anymore. The same thing is happening in Albania also. Maybe we have too many
similarities so that is why the same things are happening to us. We have great difficulties in relation to the business.
To join EU, we need to have a highway to Bulgaria, which we don’t have, we need to have a highway to Kafosan, and not to Ohrid. Kosovo has brought the highway to the border, we can’t even build 12 kilometers for 5-6 years now. We have been keeping silent for years, and what have we been doing? Even worse…we are hiding the project that the construction company Granit developed, with geology, with everything, and we say we don’t have a project. And 10 million dollars have been paid 10 years ago. Hence, without these highways we can’t join Europe.
Furthermore, we are having extreme difficulties with the administration. Without a good system there are no foreign investments.
If we want to join Europe, we need to get rid of potentates like Todor Petrov, potentates organizing the cases Sopot, Monster, Divo Naselje, Brodec and so on…Those potentates are still present”, highlighted Aliti in his speech.
