World Bank: North Macedonia's GDP growth could slow to 2.4% by 2050 without reforms

The World Bank warned on October 6, 2026 that North Macedonia faces a risk of long-term stagnation unless it implements structural reforms, projecting that GDP growth could slow to 2.4 percent by 2050 under a no-reform scenario.

Report sets out reform package to lift growth and jobs

Presented in Skopje, the new World Bank analysis says the country has made substantial progress since independence but is advancing toward European Union income levels more slowly than regional peers. The Bank calculates that a comprehensive reform agenda could raise average annual growth to 3.8 percent and create roughly 250,000 additional, better-paid jobs by mid-century.

The report identifies three structural weaknesses constraining longer-term expansion: low productivity and weak investment; distorted markets and limited competition; and an underused, shrinking and more expensive stock of human capital. It also flags risks to future growth including energy, fiscal space, demographic trends and the business climate.

To counter these trends the World Bank proposes a reform package built around three interconnected pillars: strengthening economic governance and competition; improving public spending efficiency and managing state-owned enterprises better; and accelerating technological integration, energy efficiency and innovation.

World Bank senior economist Sanja Madzarević Suister noted that economic gains over the past two decades went hand in hand with a sharp fall in poverty and a big drop in unemployment, from about 35 percent two decades ago to roughly 11 percent today. The report warns, however, that without change North Macedonia would reach only about 55 percent of average EU income by mid-century.

Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski described the document as “Macedonia: Exit from the middle-income trap” and said the government will use it as a basis for reforms. He pointed to average real growth above 3.5 percent in the 27 months since the new government took office and cited export growth of 11.5 percent versus import growth of 8.5 percent in the first two months of the third quarter. He also highlighted that inflation measured 2.3 percent in July and 2.6 percent in August, and that food and non-alcoholic beverage inflation in September was expected between 1.5 and 2 percent annually.

Photo: press material from the event