During today's visit to Macedonia the Speaker of the Parliament of Germany Rita Zismut had separate meetings with the President of the R.M.Kiro Gligorov, the Prime Minister Branko Crvenkovski and the Speaker of the Macedonian Parliament.
At the end of her visit Mrs. Rita Zismut stated: "We are interested to support the good direction of Macedonia towards Europe and the first step we should make is the accepting in the European Board". She said that after she returns to Germany she will immediately make contact with the German delegation in the Parliamentary Assembly of the European Board to see what kind of possibilities there are for doing something for the promised acceptance of Macedonia in the European Board this year already.
Mrs. Ziesmut said that her trip to Macedonia "should clearly show that we are helping Macedonia as an independent, sovereign country, with democratic orientation and should make anything possible to keep the independence of the country which is achieved in a peaceful way. For Macedonia it is important to have the feeling that Germany is engaging in it favor, not only in a political and material way, but in a cultural way too", said Zismut. She mentioned the economic situation in Macedonia too, about which she said that "the double embargo is causing huge economic difficulties". She considers that Greece, as a German partner in the European Union, is in conflict with Macedonia and "should do anything to resolve this conflict and to establish normal relations with an agreement for friendship".
Otherwise, the visit of Mrs. Rita Zismut was used to symbolically deliver the humanitarian aid consisting of medical equipment worth DEM 80,000 for the damaged areas from the recent flood. Namely, right after she arrived in Macedonia, two nights ago at the Skopje airport Mrs. Zismut symbolically delivered the aid to the president of the Red Cross of Macedonia, Zivko Popovski.
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Republic of Macedonia, Stevo Crvenkovski, on the invitation of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Andrey Kozirev, yesterday left on a three-day official visit to the Russian Federation. Minister Crvenkovski, besides the talks that he will have with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, will have meetings also with some other highly-positioned representatives of the political, public and cultural life in the Russian Federation.
During the visit and the talks, there will be opinions exchanged of common interest for the two countries, especially about the bilateral relations and the cooperation in the sphere of the political life, the cooperation in the international field, as well as about the economic, cultural and other topics of interest for the two countries. During the visit Minister Crvenkovski and Minister Kozirev, in the name of the Government of Republic of Macedonia and the Government of the Russian Federation, will sign the Agreement for cooperation in the field of culture, education and science, as well as the Protocol for cooperation between the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of Republic of Macedonia and the Russian Federation.
Otherwise, this is a first official visit of a Minister of Foreign Affairs of Republic of Macedonia to the Russian Federation.
Greek Prime-Minister Andreas Papandreu, day before yesterday, announced that Athens and Skopje do not agree in 10 percents of the disputed questions. This was stated yesterday by the newspaper of the moderate left-wing "Elephterotipia". Papandreu, according to the explanations of "Elephterotipia", with this statement wanted to emphasize that Greece has made many steps and that it can't make any new yields.
Prime-Minister Papandreu, according to "Elephterotipia", said that President Gligorov is setting a condition for the embargo to be lifted and than to give in some yields to Greece. Papandreu, regarding this, said that Greece can not lift the embargo unless there aren't any specific measures undertaken by President Gligorov.
To lift the embargo, according to Papandreu, only one simple announcement of the neighboring country is not enough, but changing of the Constitution and the flag is needed.
Minister of Internal Affairs of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Vukasin Jokanovic, yesterday announced that the citizens of former Yugoslavia, no matter what nationality they belong to and what is their present place of stay, will not be treated as foreigners in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, reported BETA agency.
"This solution will be kept until the Yugoslav crisis is resolved", stated Jokanovic at the press conference, citing the "continuity of the previous state".
"Until this is achieved the present regime of the passports will be valid", said Jokanovic explaining the proposal for the law regarding the stay of the foreigners. At the journalists' question why than to travel to Macedonia, or to some other former Yugoslav republic, you need to pay an exit tax, Jokanovic answered that it is a "fiscal collecting of revenues".
Assistant Development Minister, Spase Lazarevski, and Daniel Staufaker, chief of the Department for funding the countries of Central and Eastern Europe at the Ministry for economy and business of Switzerland, yesterday, signed an agreement for aid as high as CHF 8 million which the Swiss Government gives to our country. This direct aid will be used for funding the supplement of the equipment for energetics, as well as for realizing the particular projects in the field of ecology, protection of the Ohrid Lake, as well as for some programmes in the public and private companies. Realization of the means will start after the projects have been done in this sections, and they should be finished by the end of this year.
The bread is getting more expensive for three denars! The decision for rising the present price of 20 denars for a bread of 600 grams to 23 denars, was made by the Government at its session day before yesterday, while it was revealed yesterday by the Minister's Spokesman Guner Ismail at the Government's press conference.
The new prices should start being practiced after publishing the decision in the Official Register of Republic of Macedonia.
At its session, day before yesterday, the Government confirmed the text of the Law for local self-management, and the second phase of the law for trade unions is also checked. Both of them lead to a parliamentary procedure. At the session, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was authorized to open the proceedings for joining of Republic of Macedonia to the frame convention for protecting the national minorities at the European Board with a proposal to show an interest for joining it. Besides these issues the Prime Minister's Office checked the programmes for prevention of various deviant features, first of all: the programme for preventing the crime, corruption in the administration and the public institutions, the illegal trade and use of drugs, organized crime and counterfeiting money.
The exchange of goods between Macedonia and Italy, which in the several last years has drastically increased, could soon completely die out, from the simple reason that there is nobody to transport the goods in both directions. Namely, the contingent of 2,500 permits, which by reciprocity were exchanged between our Ministry for Transportation and Communications and the Italian Ministry for Transportation, are already coming to an end, which will mean stopping the goods' transportation.
In the negotiations which till now were conducted between the delegations of the two countries, our party keeps pointing out to the need for mutual exchange of 5,000 permits, which will completely satisfy the transportation of goods between the two countries. But, in the Italian Department's Ministry they start with the fact that their transporters do not completely use the received permits, so, firmly relying on the reciprocal principle, they even decreased the contingent of permits for this year. Last year, for example, there were 3,000 permits exchanged (which was not enough), and for this year that number is decreased to 2,500.
Italian transporters really do not get to completely use the whole contingent of permits, because it is risky for them to drive to Macedonia. First of all, because of the bad roads through Albania, which for their vehicles which have high standards will mean danger of damaging. Also, they don't drive because of the fact that in the transportation they have to pay border insurance (which is performed on the reciprocal basis), so therefore because of the obviously small paying off, they don't use all of the exchanged permits. That's why the whole goods' exchange between the two countries is actually conducted by our transporters, which, because there is no other way out, to transport the goods from and to Macedonia have to both pass the Albanian roads and pay the border insurance.
In the first half of this year, according to the data of the Public Enterprise for airport services "Macedonia" at the two airports in the country, the one in Skopje and the one in Ohrid, there have been total of 5,612 flight operations registered (taking off and lending) and 257,390 passengers, in arrival and departure. These figures in comparison to the same period last year are bigger when it comes to the take offs and lendings, when there is a total of 5,000 flight operations and 254,226 passengers registered.
The thing that is most interesting of all is the ratio between Skopje airport and the Ohrid one. The number of the operations in Ohrid notes an increase of 192 to 284, while the number of the passengers from 6,119 notes an increase of 9,100. On the other hand, 248,290 or 183 more passengers have been transported from the Skopje airport and there were 5,328 flight operations compared to the 4,808 of last year.
The cargo has been also doubled and compared to the 3291 tons transported last year, this year it rose to 6,283 tons of transported goods.
This year ten companies employing 5,000 workers in the textile industry have been liquidated. If we add this number to the previous liquidations, the total number of textile factories that have been liquidated so far is 17 with 7,000 workers.
The textile industry in Macedonia, only several years ago consisted of 50,000 employees. Today, the most frequent way of work of the Macedonian textile workers is the lohn system, which, even though is pretty used in the Macedonian textile industry, doesn't bring enough revenues. On the other hand, there is a big increase of the import of the textile products from Turkey, Bulgaria, Thailand, Korea and China with low prices and suspicious quality.
The grouping of the textile industry at the Business Chamber of Macedonia requested from the Government to implement additional tax of 10% to the ready-made products which would be used as stimulation for the export.
According to the data, the textile, food and tobacco industry experience the biggest fall of the production, while the participation of the textile industry in the structure of the industrial production is 35.3%.
The fall of the production of the textile fabrics and yarns, in comparison to the last year is 15.6%, while with the clothing the fall is 10.9%.
In the first months of this year the textile industry realized gross import of US$ 39.6 million which is an increase of 15.9%. Otherwise, the import makes up for the 80% of the total job.
The salaries in the biggest textile plants, such as "Bitolateks", "Jugoteks", "Prima", "Goblenka", "Sniteks", "Prepateks" and others are several months late, and their average is far below the one in the business. In the textile yarns section the average salary is 5,000 denars (US$ 136.4), while in the ready-made products section it's 5,620 denars (US$ 153.3).