New project for better small and medium-sized enterprises

Support to entrepreneurship in Macedonia

On 11 May this year in Skopje, the Macedonian Enterprise Development Foundation (MEDF), the Macedonian Bank for Development Support (MBDS), the Saving House "Moznosti" in co-organization with the Unit for Coordination of the IFAD Projects at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Economy, the Foundation Open Society Institute - Macedonia (FOSIM), SEED and the SME Fund, presented the activities foreseen by the project "Support to the Entrepreneurship in Macedonia". The project brings closer to the final beneficiaries the information regarding the sources for of assets for supporting the entrepreneurship and contributes to the establishment of appropriate conditions for development of SME.

"So far, there has been a considerable geographical imbalance of the use of loans for the small and medium-sized enterprises. The Vardar region was much more active than the Pelagonija, Ohrid or Polog region. By implementing this project we are planning to approach the entrepreneurs from all regions in Macedonia and see the problems they face when asking for or using the loans, said among other things Saso Klekovski, and the Minister for Economy, Stefce Jakimovski emphasized: "The SME development is very important for every society. In the western countries they participate with 60 percent in the overall economy of the country. Without successful small and medium-sized enterprises, there can be no successful big enterprises".

The project was promoted in 13 towns throughout Macedonia, starting on 12 May in Bitola, followed by promotions in: Kavadarci, Strumica, Kumanovo, Veles, Kocani, Tetovo, Gostivar, Prilep, Ohrid, Gevgelija, Stip and the closing presentation in Skopje. Such an approach is a small contribution in the reduction of the imbalance that exists in the regional distribution of the loans and other support to the entrepreneurship in Macedonia. For that purpose, the organizers prepared a publication called as the project itself "Support to entrepreneurship in Macedonia" which presents the credit lines and other financial services, financial institutions that implement the lines, as well as programmes and projects in the section of non-financial services and the involvement of consultants in certain credit lines. The publication will be distributed during the presentations and its goal is to alleviate the entrepreneurs' approach to all sources for support of the entrepreneurship in Macedonia. 
 

D.M.