AmCham Macedonia 1/2019 | Page 18

COVER STORY EU Market - Opportunity to Earn, Opportunity to Learn! Ljupcho Veleski, PhD Manager of Export Department Vitaminka I n the last decades, there is evidence of increasingly prominent trends in the world of business globalization, regional integration, reducing of barriers, workforce fluctuations and uniform regulations. As a consequence of these processes, the question of survival is not if we can live and work under these conditions, but rather how to adapt more successfully to the new age. It has impact over the companies and the national economy, but mostly, on the whole society. This is especially understandable for companies which are highly internationalized, as Vitaminka is, and are constantly in touch with this phenomenon. Being out of this process, especially when you 18 EMERGING MACEDONIA are coming from a poor and non-integrated national economy, with high brain drain tendency, a state of permanent political crisis and hardly functioning system, is even harder and without any perspective. As I mentioned, the domestic market is small, with weak purchasing power, so in order for our companies to survive and grow it is necessarily to open themselves toward international markets. In the global market, they need to collaborate or compete with companies coming from highly developed economies, with sophisticated technology and standards, and much better financial and institutional support. They are facing the challenge how to win in this