Macedonia's high foreign trade deficit exceeds 20 percent of GDP, which discloses a grave system problem.

For example in 1991 Macedonia spent about 1.5 billion dollars on purchasing foreign products, while last year 3.2 billion dollars poured out of the country to this end, Business daily writes. In other words, imports increased by 1.7 billion dollars, which is more than twice, comparing the first year of Macedonia's independence and last year's achievements in this regard. The official statistics of the period from January to April this year show that this trend is getting increasingly more prominent.

As for exports, in 1991 they amounted to 1.1 billion dollars, while last year they totaled slightly over 2 billion dollars, increasing by less than a billion over the past 15 years of transition.