SKOPJE, June 6 (Xinhua) -- Representatives of North Macedonia's Finance Ministry and the World Bank (WB) has signed the Western Balkans Trade and Transport Facilitation Project loan agreement, Macedonian Information Agency (MIA) reported on Thursday.
Under the agreement, 26.2 million euros (around 29.5 million U.S. dollars) will be provided to help reduce time and costs of trade across the Western Balkans.
North Macedonia's Finance Minister Dragan Tevdovski and the WB Country Manager Marco Mantovanelli signed the funding agreement here in the capital Skopje.
According to Tevdovski, the goal of the project is to cut import-export costs and reduce the cross-border trade time.
The project will finance the design, development, and implementation of initiatives to improve transparency and integrity, lower transaction costs, enhance inter-agency coordination, and reduce the time it takes to trade across borders.
Tevdovski said that through the implementation of the project, the costs for import-export in the region will be reduced by 10 percent.
In his remarks, Mantovanelli declared that delays at crossings in the Western Balkans are five times longer than in many European Union (EU) countries.
Moreover, Mantovanelli underlined that the annual savings would exceed 1.1 billion U.S. dollars or one percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the region in logistics costs.
Although exports from the Western Balkans can enter the EU without tariffs, only 10-20 percent of companies in the region are exporters.
This project will provide a total of 140 million U.S. dollars to other Western Balkans' regional participants, with phase one providing financing for Serbia, North Macedonia and Albania.
The Western Balkans Trade and Transport Facilitation Project is part of the four-year Country Partnership Framework and the repayment period of the loan will be 12 years, including 4 year grace period, MIA reported.
