Vele’s Thoughts

I should have published this back in late May when it happened, but better late then never. After working on this project over the past year and a half, I can finally say this:

The Prime Minister of the Government of the Republic of Macedonia today (May 28, 2008) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with executives from the French company Montupet S.A. for an investment project in Macedonia. Montupet will build a plant in the Free Economic Zone near Skopje, Macedonia to produce aluminum cylinder heads for automobile manufacturers. The plant, which will employ up to 500 people in the first phase, will be part of an initial investment of 55 million euros. Montupet plans to initiate construction by the end of 2008 and be operational in 2010. Macedonia was chosen in competition with a number of regional sites in Bulgaria and Romania, among others.

Montupet is third in a row Tier 1 supplier which has chosen Macedonia, following the likes of Johnson Controls and Johnson Matthey. This momentum over the past 2 years confirms the competitive position of Macedonia. I initiated discussions with Montupet in February of 2007, and focused constantly on the developments and opportunities with this company but also with the automotive sector in general as part of my mission to attract companies to invest in Macedonia.

Today, Macedonia has one of the best tax regimes in Europe, at 10% flat corporate and personal rates, and lowest wages with high unemployment of skilled people. When combined with excellent logistics to Europe and Turkey, and Government incentives, Macedonia presents a sustainable investment destination for European manufacturers.

Montupet works in partnership with many of the major European and American automobile manufacturers and is acknowledged as a world leader in the design, development and manufacture of aluminum cylinder heads, as well as being a major supplier of other aluminum automotive products such as wheel rims.

I’m enclosing a photo of the signing moment in their plant in France right here (I’m standing in the back, to the left and grinning):

Personally, this was a very satisfying moment, not just for me but also for my cabinet who excelled at all aspects to win this project. Fortunately for us, there’s more to come.

Johnson Matthey, one of the largest producers of automotive catalysts, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Government of Macedonia. My team and I are extremely excited to finally see this project slowly come to fruition. We have been working with JM in relative secrecy over the past several months to ensure Macedonia met and exceeded all of JM’s requirements for a new site to produce catalysts. While this is not a final decision — JM’s Board has to ratify this in July 2007 — the MoU deepens our cooperation and formalizes Macedonia as a top choice for a new plant.

With Johnson Controls already building an electronics manufacturing and assembly plant, and JM a new tenant in the free economic zone near Skopje, we are picking up momentum as a destination for manufacturing. This is especially exciting considering that JM looked at over 10 countries and 100s of sites to settle on Macedonia. It’s a combination of extremely attractive fiscal policy (0% taxes for 10 years, very low lease rate), available, inexpensive and well-qualified labor force, logistics to Western Europe and other infrastructure factors.

Read some of the Macedonian press coverage here:

Vreme

Vecer

Makfax online (english)

Americans for Tax Reform gives praise to our reforms. Macedonia is today Europe’s flat tax heaven with 12% taxes in 2007 and 10% taxes from 2008 onward.

Enjoy,

It’s here on the site of the Macedonian daily Vreme.

Enjoy

My first quote in the Wall Street Journal in support of the Macedonian government’s flat taxes. I gave this quote few weeks back on the 8th South East European Economic forum in Sofia, Bulgaria. Macedonia recently introduced flat corporate and personal income taxes, 10% each, starting in 2008. We’re officially the tax haven in Europe for businesses.

I read today that Milton Friedman died. One of the truly great economic minds and the person whose writings were most influential on my decision to study economics at the University of Chicago. I used to read in great detail his seminal works and admired his ability to delve in technical economic work and consicely present the arguments for monetary policy understandable to everyday people. This was even before I started at Chicago while I prepared for economics at the Santa Monica College. New students of economics should definitely read his books such as: Capitalism and Freedom, Price Theory, and The Road to Serfdom (only intro), among others.

I had a interview published in the Macedonian weekly FOKUS. As much as I have tried to convince the owner to publish the magazine online, he’s a stalwart. However, for the benefit of many Macedonians and readers from abroad, I’m making available the interview here:

, and .

Enjoy.

I hate moving! I have moved every year since 2003. First it was Jersey City to Philadelphia in 2003. This was a smooth move. First long distance family move, but smooth! Then, we changed buildings in Center City in 2004. Savings on rent, energy costs, conveniences, bugs, long story. Then we moved to and from Seattle during the summer. Then last year we made the biggest move yet, Philadelphia to Seattle, courtesy of Microsoft. Very smooth move, despite over $6500 in losses and damage, all because of enormouse help provided by Microsoft. And now, we’re moving to Macedonia. It’s the longest distance move ever, but with the smallest of things. Mostly packing clothes, immediate necessities and some books, and not to forget our snowboards and skiing equipment.

I’m physched about snowboarding in Macedonia this winter! That and the new job are keeping me sane. My family on the other hand…they are bearing the brunt of the sacrifice, but we’re all optimistic. We’re just anxious to get there and resume our lives.

Did I mention I hate moving? What do you do to keep you sane during such moves?

I just resigned from Microsoft. It feels a bit weird given I’ve been there only 14 months (17 if you count my internship). It’s definitely the strangest resignation I’ve had (and I’ve had only 2). I’m a bit saddened because I’m leaving a great group of people and an excellent team behind.

The great news is that I’m heading to an amazing and very exciting new opportunity: Minister for Foreign Investments for Macedonia.

How do you market a country?

How do you enable economic growth without any resources at your disposal?

I read Kill Bill’s Browser some time ago. Now, Om Malik finally catches up to it. I can only summarize my impression of these two sites and initiatives as a big “Whine!”. I’ve used Firefox many times, but stopped after MSN desktop search practically closed the game on Firefox’s advantages over IE. To me, it’s really a toss-up between IE and Firefox, just that many sites to prefer IE. (Wharton Auctions, MSFT internal sites, Active Directory domain logging, etc.). I still occasionally use Firefox for no particular reason, but is it better than IE? Not really, in my opinion.

I’m very honest in my product reviews and the last person to defend Microsoft just on ideology, but just for fun, let’s disect the 13 Good Reasons to Switch to Firefox. This is really for comical relief. First read them and then read this:

1. Since SP2, and that was last summer, IE has had pop-up blocker and pretty hefty security installed in the browser. Firefox is nothing special here.

2. I’d change this to: “Let’s gratuitously drop the porn angle because it just adds filler to our list”

3. Does Firefox have better security than any browser? I doubt it and I’ve never had a problem with IE spam/spyware taking over my PC. Again, filler reason with porn derivative Viagra.

4. Mozilla uses Google as the sugar daddy and Google doesn’t vaccinate anyone, thus making these guys Google’s lackeys.

5. Maybe some web designers are just not worth it. Every year, bazillion PC’s suffer the brunt of customers’ vulgarity because the crappy web designers use Flash to f**k up our browsing experience. Sorry, no sympathy for me. Besides with 80% plus market share on IE, who cares about the small fish

6. Whatever, get some glasses. View->Text Size->Largest, whew! that cost you 2 secs of your life.

7. Bash Firefox because it will make these guys whine even more.

8. Filler! Mozilla topped IE in being a memory hogging browser with plug-ins that crash.

9. All in IE since SP2 and MSN Desktop Search. Fire-what?

10. Someone on this team has got issues: porn, viagra, 14 and 16-year olds, do I smell a Megan’s law fugitive?

11. What tech support? Not a single problem with IE, but at least I know who to call.

12. Bill’s mojo ain’t the IE, it’s Windows.

13. Sour grapes. Get over it…