FYR Macedonia Public Expenditure Review : Fiscal Policy for Growth
FYR Macedonia is a small, open economy with solid economic growth. It reached independence in 1991. Though it was the first among the six countries in South East Europe (SEE6) 7 to gain EU candidate status in 2005, it has not been able to start neg...
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Format: | Report |
Language: | English en_US |
Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2016
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Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2015/11/25492850/fyr-macedonia-public-expenditure-review-fiscal-policy-growth http://hdl.handle.net/10986/23808 |
Summary: | FYR Macedonia is a small, open economy
with solid economic growth. It reached independence in 1991.
Though it was the first among the six countries in South
East Europe (SEE6) 7 to gain EU candidate status in 2005, it
has not been able to start negotiations for EU accession,
partly because of its name dispute with Greece. Yet, EU
accession is the main anchor of its reform agenda and all
major political parties and over 80 percent of the people
support EU membership. Landlocked, with a population of 2.1
million, the country GDP per capita is USD 5371. FYR
Macedonia has enjoyed macroeconomic and financial stability
during the last decade. Growth has been solid with an annual
real GDP per capita growth in PPP terms of 3.7 percent
between 2006 and 2014. This was the second highest growth
rate among the countries of South East Europe and far above
the EU28 average of 1.4 percent during this period, enabling
FYR Macedonia to increase its per capita income relative to
the EU28 from 30.7 percent in 2006 to 36.6 percent in 2014.
Contrary to other SEE6 countries, unemployment in FYR
Macedonia has declined since the 2009, yet gains in poverty
reduction seem to have been moderate. Fiscal stimulus was
largely driven by revenue-reducing measures and public
investment. Between 2006 and 2013, general government
spending averaged about 34.5 percent of GDP, which is
significantly below the SEE6 and the Europe and Central Asia
(ECA) average. At the same time, general government revenues
declined steeply from 33.8 percent of GDP in 2007 to 27.8
percent in 2014, one of the lowest in the ECA region as the
government reduced its rates on the corporate income tax and
personal income tax as well as social security
contributions. Also, debt financed investments of SOEs
increased. As a consequence, public debt increased, undoing
the gains of previous fiscal consolidation but enabling FYR
Macedonia to sustain growth in times of a difficult external environment. |
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