Industry (including mining) contributed 32 percent of GDP in 1998 and
employed about 40 percent of the workforce. While the coal industry provides for
the needs of the country, all other fuels, machinery, transportation equipment,
and manufactured goods are imported. Manufacturing is dominated by metallurgy
(iron, copper, lead, zinc, and chromium), chemicals, and textiles. Many
companies have been able to keep operating despite losses and delayed payments
to workers and business partners. But the VMRO-DPMNE government has planned the
sale or liquidation of seriously insolvent companies by 2002. Feni, a
ferro-nickel plant in Kavadarci, was sold for $2.3 million to France's Société
Commerciale de Métaux et Mineraux, which will invest $36 million, while
retaining all 880 employees and selling metals to Krupp Thyssen of Germany. The
privatization agency is trying to support the selling of other loss-making
companies, such as the Okta oil refinery, by cutting selling prices
substantially.
Increased demand for post-war reconstruction in Kosovo has improved the situation in the iron and steel, construction materials, and chemicals industries, and, ironically, neighboring EU member Greece, which imposed a crippling trade embargo in the early 1990s, is now the top source of foreign cash directed to banking, fuels, brewing, tobacco processing, and construction materials
Increased demand for post-war reconstruction in Kosovo has improved the situation in the iron and steel, construction materials, and chemicals industries, and, ironically, neighboring EU member Greece, which imposed a crippling trade embargo in the early 1990s, is now the top source of foreign cash directed to banking, fuels, brewing, tobacco processing, and construction materials
