REGIONAL COOPERATION AND ECONOMIC INTEGRATION

PART II:
versa for Croatia; for Macedonia it is Serbia, as well as for Montenegro; for Kosovo these
are Macedonia and Serbia, and finally for Serbia it is Bosnia and Herzegovina). So, the
creation and implementation of CEFTA-2006 acts as an incentive for closer integration
in the Region, and as Jentisch-Muller pointed out: “...the quickest way to achieve the
“Four freedoms” for the movements of goods, services, capital and people is not through
a wholesale adaptation of the acquis but rather targeted removal of barriers that currently
obstruct these freedoms” (Jentisch-Muller, 2007, p.7).
3. Geographical concentration of imports and exports of the Republic of
Macedonia
Macedonia’s recent history, like that of most other Balkan countries, begins in the 1990s.
No matter the fact that Macedonia peacefully achieved its independence in 1991, it hasn’t
had less of a decline in GDP or trade. It took Macedonia until 2003 to return to the 1991
level of GDP (Naghshopour 2008, p. 211). According to the report given by the World bank
(WB, February 2008:7), growth was sluggish, but toward the end of the period, Macedonia
has experienced considerable growth rates. GDP grew on average 3% annually in real
terms and per capita GDP in EUR showed a jump of 26% between 2000 and 2006 (See
Table 3).
Table 3: Aggregate economic growth indicators of
the Republic of Macedonia, 2001-2006
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
GDP/capita (EUR at exch. rate) 1921 1887 1981 2025 2128 2279 2432
GDP real growth 4.5 -4.5 0.9 2.8 4.1 3.8 3.5
Source: “Labor Costs and Labor Taxes in the Western Balkans”, WB, February 2008
Both imports and exports in the Republic of Macedonia had overall positive trends, and in
fact, they grew by more than 2.5 times (See Tables 4 and 5). The main nagging problem
in this area was that total imports exceed total exports and Macedonian imports from all
SEE countries grew faster than exports (from 1.89 times for imports from Croatia; 2.35
times for Serbia and Montenegro; 6.3 times for Albania and 6.47 times for Bosnia and
Herzegovina, to 1.91 times increase of exports in Serbia; 3.43 times in Croatia; 3.79 times
in Bosnia and Herzegovina and 5.68 times in Albania).
The same can not be said for the geographical concentration of Macedonian imports and
exports in the Region of SEE, since almost in the whole period, exports exceeded imports
in all SEE countries (apart for Croatia in 2000 and for Serbia and Montenegro in 2004,
when imports exceeded exports). Looking into the structure of import-export data, it is
clear that in the whole period, the most important trading partner of Macedonia was Serbia 5
(always more than 70% in the import, as well as in the export side), while Croatia was on
the second place, creating almost ¼ of imports and between 11% and 17% of exports.
5 Before the independence of Montenegro in 2006, data is given for Serbia and Montenegro.
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