ANALYSIS
Overview on Macedonia’s New Law
on Financial Discipline
Macedonian Parliament adopted the Law on Financial Discipline in December 2013, setting arbitrary
invoice payment deadlines for private and public
sector entities and introducing additional penalties for late payers. AmCham predicted at the time
that the Law would fail to improve liquidity in the
country (the Government’s main justification of
the proposed Law) while reducing economic freedom and increasing existential stress on many
struggling businesses operating here.
Unfortunately, the final version of the Law was
even worse than the version published on the
National Electronic Register of Regulations for
public comment. Namely, at first, the application
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of the new payment deadlines was delayed only
for the State Health Fund (until January 1st, 2016).
However, the adopted version of the Law delayed
its applicability to a number of additional State
institutions and public enterprises, while remaining firm on its applicability to the private sector as of May 1, 2014. In an economy where the
State plays such a disproportionately large role,
this decision seems designed to increase the number of informal loans from the private to the public sector in a number of sectors. Namely, private
companies who sell products and services to State
institutions are now in a worse liquidity situation
than before the enactment of the Law, since penalties for paying their suppliers
late have been dramatically raised
while their State clients are held to
the same low standard as before.
From an implementation perspective, the inconsistencies of
the Law’s key terms, its vagueness and overlap with other laws
have lessened companies’ sense
of legal certainty since various
stakeholders are bound to interpret and apply it in subjective and
unpredictable ways.
Richard Norment interview
continued from page 13
Such arrangements may include sharing production
equipment and skilled technicians who supplement
university teaching facilities and staff. Obviously, the
private sector shares in the cost of such partnerships.
work in an on-campus “VW Academy” (a prototype
of the factory floor built by the company) as well as
in the company’s actual factory in exchange for reallife experience and some compensation.
One of the best examples of this is in Chattanooga,
Tennessee, where local colleges have teamed up
with Volkswagen to provide skilled workers for their
new manufacturing facility in that city. In addition to
attending traditional classroom lectures, students
Partnership can be applied to a wide variety of uses.
Imagination is key for finding applications of this
innovative redelivery tool. While PPPs will not fit
every situation, they should be considered before the
public sector proceeds with a project.
Emerging Macedonia Summer 2014 Issue 42
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