Skopje, 1 November 2023 (MIA) – The most innovative digital industry is rapidly growing. The digital economy makes up 15 percent of global GDP, and is expected to grow by 30 percent by 2030, creating around 30 million jobs, stated the participants at the annual conference of the Chamber of Commerce for Information and Communication Technologies – MASIT, held on Wednesday under the title “Building Bridges Towards our Common Digital Future”.

At the opening of the conference, President Stevo Pendarovski said the development of information technologies is a strategic tool of the advanced economies. “According to the World Economic Forum,” said Pendarovski, “70 percent of the new value created globally in the coming decade will be based on digital businesses.”

“The global digital gap is growing. The greatest risk for any economy and country is to remain on the side of aged technology and be treated as an area for the recruitment of cheap labor and low quality of life. The question we face is on which side of the digital gap will we find ourselves on as a society and as a country. Will we be passive consumers of the new digital products, or active creators competing on the global digital market,” said Pendarovski.

The President added that the answer to this question primarily depends on demographics. He pointed to youth emigration as a key challenge faced by the country, saying that many young people choose to leave the country “despite the relatively high wages for our surroundings.”

“The 2020 World Migration Report placed the country in the twentieth place in terms of the rate of migration. According to latest projections, North Macedonia will lose 10.9 percent of its population by 2050. The greatest obstacle to the creation of a successful digital future would be being left without a digital transformation. The question isn’t whether the youth will realize their future, but whether they will do so here, or in some other, more developed country, as digital nomads. Therefore, the key challenge that we face is how to keep the younger generation here,” said Pendarovski.

In his address, Deputy Prime Minister in charge of economic affairs, Fatmir Bytyqi, cited data from the World Bank saying that the digital economy makes up around 15 percent of the global GDP, and is expected to grow by 30 percent in 2030, creating around 30 million jobs in the process. Bytyqi said this outline for the future is not distant for the country’s economy.

“In 2019 we had 2198 ICT companies who had net exports of EUR 210 million, and employed around 15.000 citizens of North Macedonia paying a monthly gross wage of almost EUR 1.500. These figures grew last year, we have 2846 companies, with almost 20.000 employees, who have generated EUR 467.86 million in exports, which is more than double the 2019 numbers. Perhaps the most important part, the employees in this sector had an average gross wage of EUR 2.260 last year,” said Bytyqi.

The opening of the conference was addressed by the Minister of Information Society and Administration, Azir Aliu, as well as the President of the Assembly of MASIT, Aneta Antova-Pesheva.

Photo: Office of the President of North Macedonia