No. 21 Macedonian Matters
PM Mickoski in Washington, N. Macedonia's human capital loss, and SDSM's Filipche coordinating with party's MPs.
This is Macedonian Matters. I’m Aleksej Demjanski.
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The Matters
PM Mickoski leading a delegation at the NATO Summit in Washington
North Macedonia among top 5 in Europe losing human capital
SDSM’s Filipce holds coordination meeting with party’s MPs
PM Mickoski leads delegation at the NATO Summit in Washington
Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski is leading a delegation to Washington for the NATO Summit taking place July 9 - 11. He will be accompanied by MFA Timcho Mucunski, MOD Vlado Misajlovski, and MOI Panche Toshkovski. The delegation will then travel to New York. Speaker of Parliament Afrim Gashi will also attend the Summit and its Parliamentary Assembly and has a separate agenda.
The government released a statement from Mickoski:
“What I also want to emphasize are the large number of bilateral meetings that I will have together with statesmen of countries that are members of the NATO alliance, in the days that follow… I will have meetings with business community here in the USA, where I will present the potential that Macedonia offers for investment.
I will announce another new foreign investment of a company that is part of the list of the largest 500 companies here in the USA, new tens of millions of euros of investment and new jobs for Macedonian citizens.
This is the main priority of the new government in Macedonia. I would also like to mention that I will use the last days in New York to meet with the Macedonian diaspora, the Macedonian emigrants.
I would like to hear from them what they expect from the new government and naturally, what the new government will offer so that our expatriates can return home, to their homeland, invest there and practically avoid them all those obstacles that were the past period that they faced when they came back to their homeland.”
N. Macedonia among top 5 European states losing human capital
A report released by the State Audit Office, “Effectiveness of measures to prevent the outflow of highly educated and professional personnel,” found that North Macedonia does not have a strategic document to combat the outflow of qualified personnel. In other words, there is no active strategy to address brain drain and the loss of human capital. As reported by Radio MOF, the SAO report also noted that:
“Macedonia ranks a high fifth out of 41 European countries on the Global Economy Brain Drain Index, which clearly shows that the country is facing a major loss of talent. Meanwhile, according to World Bank estimates, almost 40% of individuals with higher education have left the country, while according to a 2020 IOM report, Macedonia is in the top 50 countries in the world with the largest emigration abroad.”
As cited by Sitel:
“Over 700 million euros of damage has been suffered by the state in the past 8 years. The SAO report shows an alarming brain drain due to the state's ineffective measures to keep them at home. In the period 2013-2021, an average of 2,500 highly educated personnel emigrated from the state annually… The outflow of highly educated staff has a serious effect on the GDP on an annual level, and according to calculations, the total negative economic effect reflects a loss of 8.34 percent.”
SDSM’s Filipche holds coordination meeting with party’s MPs
As highlighted in a press release from the party, Filipche highlighted:
“Our primary focus is to restore the trust of the citizens and for SDSM’s MPs to be true representatives of the citizens in Parliament. Therefore, according to my promises before the party’s members, each of the MPs will have regular meetings with citizens in the constituencies where they received their trust and will be in constant contact with the needs of the people. Through the offices of the MPs and regular meetings with citizens, we will ensure that the policies and proposals of the SDSM will be closely related to the needs and expectations of the citizens.”
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