As part of visits to the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) members from South East Europe (SEE), the Secretary General Hido Biscevic met yesterday in Skopje with the Prime Minister of The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Nikola Gruevski, and informed him on the finalization of the Strategy and Work Programme of the organization for the 2011-2013 period. 

Biscevic emphasized that, following the Western Balkans Investment Framework established last December in Brussels at the conference “Western Balkans: Overcoming the economic crisis – from regional cooperation to EU membership”, projects of importance for the region should be designed and developed, especially in the field of energy, transportation and other areas of infrastructure.

Prime Minister Gruevski expressed his support to the work of RCC in developing regional projects, and stressed organisation’s importance in the context of EU integration process of the South East European countries. He agreed with the proposal regarding designing joint regional projects which would stimulate accelerated economic development of each individual national economies and the region as a whole.   

The meeting was also attended by The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Vladimir Peshevski; Minister for Foreign Affairs, Antionio Milososki; Minister of Economy, Fatmir Besimi; and Minister of Transport and Communication, Mile Janakieski.

In a separate meeting, the Minister of Economy, Fatmir Besimi, supported the energy projects and transport corridors and underscored the interest of The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in connecting its transmission grids with the neighbouring countries, as well as his country’s readiness to consider the possibilities for cooperation in the fields of industrial clusters, agriculture and tourism.