Skopje, 20 October 2023 (MIA) - Finance Minister Fatmir Besimi and the directors of the Public Revenue Office, Customs Administration, Financial Police Office and the Financial Intelligence Office held a meeting on Friday to coordinate preparations for the National Council on the formalization of informal economy.

"Informal economy is one of the most pressing problems for both the economy and society, because gray economy is a one-off gain for an individual at the expense of a long-term loss for the entire society. Tax evasion, illegal labor, and other forms of system avoidance, are detrimental to the entire public apparatus - health, education, social and infrastructure development. Therefore, the system must be aimed at eradicating this anomaly, and good coordination between institutions in charge of different system goals is key in creating synergy for this fight," Besimi said.

The National Council for formalizing informal economy is made up of 20 members, high-level representatives of institutions responsible for activities to reduce informal economy.

The decision to form the National Council was made by the Government, and its role is to guide measures and activities according to the 2023-2027 Strategy for the Formalization of the Informal Economy and Action Plan, which are the result of cross-sectoral cooperation and are based on a comprehensive approach in dealing with informal economy.

The medium-term target by 2027 is to reduce informal economy by nine percentage points. ssh/nn/

Photo: Ministry of Finance