Zoran Stavreski

If the government has its way, Macedonia will spend a record sum of ?3.18 billion in 2016, 6 per cent more than this year's budget, which already broke the record.

The government plans to gather ?2.87 billion in revenue, which means a budget deficit of 3.2 per cent of GDP, or about ?308 million.

The government said on Wednesday that it had submitted a bill to parliament that will scrap the tax increase from 10 to 35 per cent for contract workers.

"The decision goes into force in August 1," Finance Minister Zoran Stavreski told media on Wednesday.

He added that the law was scrapped because of the low revenues that it generated, only around four million euro per year.

Macedonia's government proposed a rebalanced budget that enters parliament procedure on Thursday, which foresees increased spending of ?85 million and increased revenue of ?58 million.

The total budget tops ?3 billion, the biggest sum in 25 years of independence.

Skopje asks Russia to cut customs rates

SKOPJE -- Macedonia has asked Russia to lower its customs rates for agriculture and food industry products that Macedonia exports to that country.

Finance Minister Zoran Stavreski on Monday said the opposition's latest slew of wiretapped telephone conversations were aimed at sowing discord in the ranks of the government.

In new recordings that the opposition Social Democrats presented earlier on Monday, the minister is heard slating Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski's policies as mad and irresponsible.

Macedonian Finance Minister Zoran Stavreski said that since the debt write-off campaign was launched in early August, some 17,600 socially vulnerable people from the socially have applied to be exempted from paying overdue bank loans, heating, water, television and electricity bills.

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Despite the absence of opposition legislators, a plenary session of the Macedonian parliament is expected to approve a package of seven government-proposed changes to the constitution on Wednesday or Thursday.  

One of the proposed changes, which has drawn criticism from human rights activists, will define marriage more narrowly as a union strictly between one man and one woman.

Macedonian Finance Minister Zoran Stavreski and Transport Minister Mile Janakieski signed a deal on Tuesday to buy four diesel and two electric trains from the Chinese company CSR Corporation Ltd.

The new trains, which can transport around 200 people each, will be enough to carry some 60 per cent of Macedonia’s existing passenger trafic.

The IMF survey of Macedonia’s economic parameters, which should reveal its ability to repay its debt on time, is being led by the IMF’s mission chief for Macedonia, Ivanna Vladkova Hollar.

A group of more than 50 prominent politicians, clerics, doctors, athletes and artists has urged the centre-right VMRO DPMNE to again endorse the candidacy of Gjorge Ivanov in the April elections.

The petition increases the likelihood that the incumbent President will run for a second five-year term.