Government measures for startup companies in North Macedonia

15.04.2019.

With the economic situation in our country, it is really hard for any person to decide to start a business on their own. However, in the past few years our government has introduced a few new programs in order to help people become more independent and expand the variety of businesses in our country, a participant of the program explains.

A few years ago, a very popular measure was the grant of 3,000 EUR that our government was giving to the young unemployed people to start their own business. This money was not refundable but they had one condition, to keep their business open for at least 3 years. From one side it sounded perfect for people with great business ideas, but on the other side many people faced a lot of problems due to the lack of knowledge with how to grow a business as the entrepreneurship wasn’t that popular at that time in our country.


Since then, we can say that many things have changed due to the fact that this possibility was very appealing for the young people, and they started educating themselves more and more on the topic of entrepreneurship.

Today a very appealing measure is the grant given by the government to the young farmer that can be up to 20,000 EUR that is not refundable. The idea is to develop the rural part of our country and to bring the people back to the villages which are barely empty. This is for everyone willing to start a business as a farmer from the age of 18-40 years old, and the grant can be used for buying new equipment, producing capacities and realization of their business ideas in the agricultural sector.

Fund for innovations

Also, for a few years already, we have the Fund for innovations and technology development, which offers assistance to young entrepreneurs with the help of government. This fund gives a lot of funding opportunities and puts an accent to the innovations in all sectors. It is a great opportunity for young innovative people to start a business on their own and become independent.

We can say that today the situation is far better than before regarding the governmental help for young entrepreneurs, but we can also say that there is still a lot of work to be done in order to make this country a favourable one for new startups. Partially the problem is the government itself, as it is believed by many people, based on the things that have happened by now, that these grants are not given to the people that really deserve it but to people who are close to the ruling party or to close relatives to the members of the government.

Anyway, it is always good to try and see where your idea will take you.

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