The President Stevo Pendarovski, the Prime minister Dimitar Kovachevski, the Finance Minister Fatmir Besimi, the Governor of the National Bank Anita Angelovska – Bezhovska, and numerous representatives with Solemn Academy marked the 30th anniversary of Macedonia’s monetary independence.
30 years ago, on the 26th of April 1992, the foundations of the monetary independence were laid. The Macedonian citizens were presented with banknotes of the new Macedonian currency – the denar, which became a national currency that replaced the Yugoslavian dinar, and the National Bank began functioning as an independent Central Bank. This completed our country’s independence.
In his address, President Pendarovski said that with the policies of establishing a stable rate for the denar, the Central Bank during that period played a crucial role in the strengthening of the foundations of our independence and statehood, the inflation was stabilized, the banking system began to recover, and a significant sum of foreign currency reserves were created, as a key aspect for the country’s foreign currency liquidity.
Returning to present, Pendarovski stressed that the confidence in our currency, unfortunately, is continuously being undermined, even by factors that are becoming more difficult to control.
“I’m talking about hybrid threats, among which the most dangerous is the disinformation that is most widely spread and is shared more intensively on social networks. We are witnesses, especially in the last year, that the National Bank was targeted by numerous false news which had one goal – to create panic among the people, unsafety, and lack of trust in the system. But we have to state that our Central Bank so far has successfully waged these battles and has timely reacted to all news that is spreading false information,” Pendarovski said.
The National Bank’s Governor Anita Angelovska-Bezhovska in her written address about the 30th anniversary of our country’s monetary independence pledged that the denar will serve as “an anchor of our economy’s stability.”
“The denar’s stability and the financial stability were preserved even during the most difficult economic crisis that was caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The National Bank was one of the pillars that has preserved the stability of the whole economic system thus accomplishing its mandatory goals and providing its support for the economy through appropriate policies and measures. I will not make a mistake if I say that after this crisis, both the economy and the institutions that are part of the economic system have grown stronger. The National Bank has once again confirmed its determination for preserving the denar’s stability and in the future, it will still be “the anchor of stability of our economy,” said Angelovska-Beovska in her address.
