Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, Government members and business leaders from Macedonia held a business forum in the Chinese capital of Beijing November 26, Thursday , to present the potential for investing in Macedonia and using the country as a base of European operations. The forum was co-organizaed with the Chinese Investment Foundation, and it included company representatives from the Chinese construction, technology, metallurgical, food and energy industries. Fifteen separate meetings were held with companies who are interested in working with Macedonia, and the Government representatives also signed a protocol for export of frozen lamb meat from Macedonia to China.

"Macedonia has one of the best business conditions and I think that we can work very well with the Government, through our business partner Euromax. I was in Macedonia two weeks ago and it was an impressive experience. We were in Macedonia to work on developing two projects, one in mining and the other in the energy sector", Wang Yang from the China Camc Engineering company said. Euromax is working on developing a large new copper and gold mine in eastern Macedonia.

Qian Fu, manager of the Nuctech Company, who also attended the forum, said that the company has investments in Poland and is looking to expand elsewhere in Europe. "I was surprised by the investment opportunities available in Macedonia and the favorable business conditions. In the future we plan to continue our production in Europe and Macedonia is a potential venue for our second Europe based investment", Qian said.

In his remarks, Prime Minister Gruevski focused on the business climate offered by Macedonia and presented the international reports on the potential for business in the country. "The World Bank publishes its Doing Business report once a year, and ranks countries based on how favorable is their business climate. In 2006 Macedonia was ranked 94th. But, after many reforms, after many steps to improve the situation, we are now ranked 12th in the world and sixth in Europe, right behind the United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland", Gruevski said at the forum.

The Prime Minister elaborated the reforms to cut unnecessary red tape that was hindering economic development with bureaucratic problems, reducing the cost of many procedures, and the permanent consultations with the chambers of commerce to improve the business climate. "This communication led to numerous suggestions and ideas that we implemented, and which led to better business conditions for both domestic and international companies", Gruevski said.

Gruevski added that the income tax is at a flat rate of 10 percent, with an effective tax rate of 7,4 percent. Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Pesevski also presented the potential for investment in some of the free economic zones, which offer pre-prepared lots of land for construction of plants, with a number of tax breaks and subsidies for companies that commit to building large plants in innovative industries. Pesevski added that, besides investment, the forum helped improve trade ties.

"The director of the Food and Veterinary Agency Zoran Popovski today signed a protocol with the appropriate Chinese authorities that will allow the export of frozen lamb meat from Macedonia to China. China is the World's second economy and also one of the fastest growing economies, and this is right place to be. China is gradually opening for other markets and the countries that are successful in presenting their potential to China and that promote well grounded projects, can count on more intensive cooperation", Deputy Prime Minister Pesevski said.