“Competitiveness is firm-level productivity “
The mission of USAID Macedonia’s Competitiveness Activity (MCA) is to build the prosperity of the average citizen of Macedonia by helping Macedonian enterprises generate the vision and initiatives that will result in their increased competitiveness in domestic, regional and international markets. USAID MCA works with Macedonian enterprises of all sizes, helping them to develop and market complex products and services to command higher prices from demanding customers around the world.
Clusters are inter-related firms and other institutions that drive the competitiveness of a given industry. Clusters consist of private enterprises of various sizes, including producers, suppliers and buyers, plus representatives of labor, government, professional associations and academic, research or training institutes.
MCA and its local experts in competitiveness now work with five clusters:
Lamb meat and cheese
Tourism
Information Technology (IT)
Wine
Apparel
Entrepreneurs in the lamb and cheese cluster are turning the sector around and creating new opportunities for the industry. More than 70 participants are working together to make the operational improvements required to successfully penetrate regional and global markets. Several shipments have been successfully exported to the Australian, Albanian and the US markets. At the same time, lamb producers supported by the MCA, LOL and SFARM work on the implementation of the lamb test market program in Greece which should enable direct sales of lamb meat to the supermarkets.
The tourism cluster, consisting of over 60 Macedonian entities, has identified the target group of tourists ready to pay higher prices for a unique Macedonian tourism experience. Five familiarization trips have been organized for international tour operators and specialized travel writers. The outcome of these trips is that nine tour operators have included tours in Macedonia in their 2005/06 catalogues. In addition, numerous articles on Macedonia have been published in specialized travel magazines and TV programs, which have increased the interest for Macedonia as a travel destination.
The IT cluster is working on positioning Macedonia as an outsourcing destination for software development, with special emphasis on the European market, utilizing its competitive advantages – extremely high skill base, short time span for product development and delivery to any European country, for the purposes of which the MacedoniaIT Consortium was established. At the same time, the cluster provides an IT platform from which leading Macedonian industrial sectors can produce and launch more competitive products.
A sub-group of the IT cluster is working on strengthening the capacity of the digital entertainment industry in the country, and the Macedonian Association of Digital Entertainment (M.A.D.E.) was established to that end. The mission of M.A.D.E. is to build and promote Macedonia as a new destination/front of the digital entertainment industry. M.A.D.E. is currently working on a project that will attract domestic as well as foreign direct investment in the building of a Digital Media Film City in Macedonia.
The wine cluster objectives are to improve Macedonian wines’ quality and to help shift exports from bulk wine into higher value bottled wines. Strong emphasis is being put on the promotion, new marketing techniques and a specialized export test market program, and as part of this efforts in September 2005 five small and medium size wineries formed a consortia under the name of The Macedonian Fine Wines Export Groupand presented their wines of excellent quality, flavor and consistency in the UK market.
The apparel cluster is focusing on pulling out of the CMT system of operation by improving the flexibility of their own production, restoring the local production of fabrics, developing Macedonian proprietary designs and brands, and attracting foreign direct investments. 43 cluster members from 20 companies visited the Copenhagen Trade Fair, and six companies exhibited collectively their collections at the Milan and Madrid Trade Fairs. The first successes of this industry include some CMT contracts for new markets that require production improvements and investments in human resources.
The private and civil sectors lead in the endeavors towards increased competitiveness, with the government acting as a supporting partner. MCA facilitated the establishment of the National Entrepreneurship and Competitiveness Council (NECC), a tri-partite body whose priorities include: improved management capabilities, increased foreign and domestic investments, public investment and European integration.
In October 2005, NECC, together with MCA, organized the third annual National Summit on Competitiveness. More than 200 selected participants, representatives of the private sector, donor community, civil society, academia and government discussed at great lengths NECC and clusters’ achievements in the period since the last Summit, as well as future initiatives. The speakers emphasized the importance of a strong public – private sectors dialogue as central in a more efficient building of Macedonia’s competitiveness, and pointed out that the private sector had to take the lead in developing strategies for economic growth and that regional cooperation is needed in support of faster economic growth and EU integration. Committed to enhance the prosperity of the country in line with global competitiveness trends and opportunities, NECC has published the First National Competitiveness Report of the Republic of Macedonia in December 2005.
MCA is working with its Macedonian partners to create better strategies, better products and stronger companies with better access to international markets through improved production, operation and quality. The Project is helping Macedonia to choose prosperity.
This activity is implemented by Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH).
For more information:
U.S.Agency for International Development
U.S Embassy, Samoilova 21,1000 Skopje, Macedonia
Telephone: +(389) 2 310 2000 Fax +(389) 2 310 2463
USAID Mission contact:
Meri Cuculoska
E-mail: mcuculoska@usaid.gov
USAID Development Outreach and Communication office
Biljana Velickovska, DOC Specialist