A delegation of the Defense Ministry of the Republic of Macedonia and the General Staff of the Macedonian Army, led by Defense Minister Blagoja Handziski, arrived in Washington Friday, on a several-day official visit to the U.S.A..
Today, minister Handziski will hold meetings in the Pentagon with the U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry, Makpress reports. Simultaneously, the members of the bilateral working group, formed after the signing of the Memorandum for cooperation between the two ministries, will also hold talks at the Pentagon. The Macedonian side is led by gen. lieutenant- colonel Trajche Krstevski.
During the stay of the Macedonian delegation in Washington, an intensive program of meetings and talks with a number of official representatives of the Department of Defense and the State Department are planned, which will focus on security issues in the region, cooperation and the UN peacekeeping operations.
Tomorrow, the delegation will visit the military bases Fort Monroe in Virginia and Fort Brack in North Carolina. Minister Handziski will end his visit on Thursday. Afterwards, he will head for New York, where he will hold talks at the UN. He will be ending his visit Saturday.
The UN mediator Cyrus Vance and the envoy of the U.S. President in the dispute between Athens and Skopje Matthew Nimetz met in New York on Saturday with the leader of the Greek opposition Miltijadis Evert.
According to the Greek press, Cyrus Vance stated, following the meeting with Evert, that he expected progress in settling the Greek-Macedonian dispute.
The leader of the Greek opposition Miltijadis Evert assessed the meeting in New York as useful and stated that New Democracy had always believed in the need to settle the complex questions between Athens and Skopje with dialogue.
The central Greek newspapers conveyed the statement of President Kiro Gligorov on Friday, following his return from Moscow, assessing it as "another demonstration of adamancy."
Under the title "Unreadiness of Skopje to abolish differences," the newspaper "Katimerini" points out that President Gligorov accused Greece for keeping up the embargo, and for the first time, mentioned the new demands that Greece is occasionally expressing.
Emphasizing that Greece has not set any new demands in the negotiations in New York, "Katimerini" concludes that the efforts of President Gligorov to start a dialogue in New York, on equal grounds "is clear pressure for the lifting of the embargo."
The newspaper of the moderate left-wing "Elefterotipia," calling upon assessments of anonymous diplomats, claimed on Friday that the negotiations between Athens and Skopje would be over this summer.
"Elefterotipia," as Makfaks reports, does not explain this assertion.
The Italian Ministries of Internal and Foreign Affairs have indefinitely banned entry to all busses from the Republic of Macedonia, Makpress reports.
The decision of the Italian authorities has been submitted to the Macedonian embassy in Rome, which informed the Macedonian Ministry of Traffic and Relations. The reason for the ban, as stated in the decision of the Italian authorities, is that the Macedonian tourist organizations and transporters are accused of illegally smuggling immigrants from Albania and former Yugoslavia into Italy.
Otherwise, RM and Italy have signed an agreement for regulation of the passenger traffic.
The Assistant Minister of Traffic Boris Chaushevski told Radio NOMA that the decision was unexpected and damaging to both sides, and foremost, political. He said that measures for normalization of the situation were already being taken, that contacts have already been made with the Italian ministry and now, official talks were expected to start for re-establishing the cooperation.
Although without sufficient information in relation to the biggest robbery in Macedonia of 1,224,950 DEM, "Vecer" informs that all 15 employees in the branch of Stopanska banka, located at the border point Bogorodica, near Gevgelija, have been questioned. "Vecer" also informs that "Interpol" has been engaged to help in the investigation. According to the Macedonian media, all sources to finding out something more about this robbery are tightly closed and the Interior Ministry and Stopanska banka from Skopje either can not or are avoiding answering the question as to who is involved in the robbery and where the stolen money is.
"Vecer" informs that there are still no arrests in relation to this case, which means there are no suspects! In relation to the relaxed attitude of the employees who had the original keys from the safe, apparently none of them were specifically assigned to guard the keys, so anyone could have had them and could have made a copy. It is known that most of the stolen bills were old, which means they were waiting "their turn" to be replaced by new ones.
A foreign entity can open a representation in Macedonia, provided this contributes to the advancement of the economic relations with foreign countries, the connection of foreign entities with domestic companies and other legal entities, and the increase in the export of goods and services from Macedonia, is said in the Decree related to the conditions for the opening and functioning of foreign representations in Macedonia.
Among the persons that can open foreign representations in Macedonia are those that deal with economic activities (production, sale of goods and services), banking-financial activities or insurance.
The Decree does not regard as foreign entities the companies and other forms of economic activities that were founded abroad by the citizens of the Republic of Macedonia. This Decree does not allow the opening of representations in the field of arms and military equipment.
Macedonia is recognizing a total debt of US$ 779 million as principal and US$ 439 million as interest to the London Club, the Paris Club and the other international financial organizations and creditors. The debt to the London Club is US$ 272 million as principal and US$ 257 million as interest, to the Paris Club - US$ 224 million as principal and US$ 48 million as interest, to the IMF US$ 33 million as principal and US$ 12 million as interest, to the World bank US$ 133 million as principal and US$ 56 million as interest, to the EBRD US$ 53 million as principal and US$ 50 million as interest, to the IFC US$ 14 million as principal and US$ 1.6 million interest, to EuroFima US$ 30 million as principal and US$ 6 million interest, and to the European Fund for Reintegration US$ 6 million as principal and US$ 2 million as interest.
During this year, Macedonia will have to pay: to the IMF - US$ 3 million, to IBRD US$ 24 million, to EBRD US$ 6 million, to EuroFima US$ 14 million, to the European Fund for Reintegration US$ 1.1 million and to IDA US$ 300,000.
The regulation of the debt to the Paris Club, this year, of US$ 34 million, has been left until after the completion of negotiations with this creditor, and the regulation of this year's debt to the London Club of US$ 48 million will reach the daily agenda after the regulation of relations with the Paris Club.
The Managing board of the "Skopje fair" has opened the offers for additional investments. According to the privatization program of the company, this model of transformation is being combined with the model for the sale of an ideal part of the company. Namely, who ever invests funds for additional investments, will have to do so with an investment of 51% of the value of the company. Otherwise, so far, the company is 26.28% privatized, and it is estimated at 10.5 million DEM. According to the annual financial statement, the "Skopje fair" ranks among the 14 companies making the largest profits in the state.
The Managing board has received two offers - one from the managerial team and one Italian broker from the Rome stock exchange, and the other one is from two local companies - "Suteks 2 company" and "New York - Manhattan." According to the offer of the managerial team, an additional investment of 3.2 million DEM is planned, and according to the current director Tom Talevski, with the offered program, the firms profits would increase 5 times in comparison with last year's.
The other offer from the two local firms offers an additional investment of 8 million DEM or 76.19% of the estimated value of the firm. They are prepared to buy up the untransformed capital of the company, valued at 5.7 million DEM, within 6 months.
The selection of offers will be made by the Managing board of the "Skopje fair," over a period of 15 days.
At the first international wine fair "Zagreb '95," the Macedonian wine "ALMAKO," won the grand prize in the category of red wines, in competition with another 377 different sorts and types of wine. This award was presented by the international jury, in competition with Italian, Austrian and other sorts of wine, from a number of European countries.
Otherwise, this wine won the champion title of SKOMESA '94 and the gold medal for bottle design at the 14th biennial for industrial design in Ljubljana.
Following six month long negotiations, the sales contract between IFV (Swedish-German-English firm) and the stock company "Treska - Boris Kidrich" from Kochani, has finally been realized. Otherwise, "Treska- Boris Kidrich" is a Macedonian factory for the processing of wood, and the second firm to be bought by a foreign partner in the privatization process.
Of the overall estimated value of "Boris Kidrich" of 3.8 million DEM, the foreign partner has bought 51% or 1.9 million DEM. The firm is issuing the other 1.8 million DEM as priority stocks, while 266,000 DEM (15% of the value) are being given to the Fund for pension and invalid insurance, for free.