October 15 (SeeNews) - Foreign direct investments (FDI) in Macedonia in July rose by 136.7% month-on-month to $23.67 million (16.7 million euro), central bank statistics showed on Monday.
FDI in June was $10.0 million, 2.7% lower on a monthly basis.
Macedonia, an ex-Yugoslav republic of two million people with European Union candidate status, saw FDI almost triple to $359.6 million last year, however mainly due to the sale of 90% of its power distributor ESM to Austrian utility EVN for 225 million euro ($319.7 million).
France topped the list of foreign investors in Macedonia with a total of $30.1 million through July, followed by Austria with investments of $28.6 million.
Macedonia's conservative government which took office in August 2006 has pledged to speed up the country's economic growth above the four percent average annual rate that has been reported since 2004, maintaining a narrow budget deficit and reducing unemployment.
The country, which split from Yugoslavia in 1991, is one of the poorest in Europe, with a gross domestic product per capita of around $2,300. Macedonia hopes to increase the portion of FDI in GDP to four percent by 2009 from below one percent in 2006.
($ = 0.7039 euro)