I am still waiting for someone to offer a plausible analysis of how the change of the exchange rate regime will boost economic growth. Except naive statements in the media, so far no one has offered such an analysis. In the economic literature, it has long been concluded that the exchange rate regime does not affect economic growth. Do you think that Macedonia has an efficient economic model and exchange rate regime if it records economic growth rates which do not exceed 3–4 percent, and everybody agrees that it is necessary to have growth of over 8 percent? It is very naive to link economic growth only with the exchange rate regime. Economic growth is a very complex phenomenon that depends on about a hundred of factors. Competitiveness of an economy does not depend only on the exchange rate. Take the global competitiveness index of the World Economic Forum. It takes into account more than one hundred indicators for measuring the competitiveness of countries. If someone believes that Macedonia will realize an 8 percent growth rate only if the exchange rate regime is changed, I am left speechless. The change in the exchange rate is used as an instrument for improving the competitiveness only when the country has failed to improve other factors and there is no other choice.
At the moment we are sure that risks to price stability undermining are eliminated, we will apply monetary measures appropriate for the slower economic growth. Маy pressures be coming from the fiscal policy? So far, they have not, and I hope it will remain that way. The best confirmation of that are the balances in the economy. After all, exactly because of that, we had room for the so far most relaxed monetary policy without jeopardizing the stability of prices, Denar exchange rate and the banking system. Banks’ non-performing loans will decrease This year, liquidity was the biggest problem of the companies. The figures showed that the indebtedness in the real sector is huge, over Euro 5 billion, with the country’s debt to the companies being over Euro 220 million. In such circumstances, banks have reduced lending to firms to a minimum and they struggle with the growth of bad loans. Can we expect the situation to improve? In the statistics that are known to me I have not found such figures. However, when economic growth and exports slow down and budgetary payments are late, usually the liquidity of companies deteriorates. Therefore they are late in the settlement of obligations to the banks. Despite that, non-performing loans of the Macedonian banks amount to about 10 percent, which is the lowest share in the region from Slovenia to Greece. Announced debt repayments from the budget will contribute to the reduction of the debts among companies, and finally debts toward the banks.