On May 17th, 2017 the Information and Communication Technologies Association held a meeting in the Economic Chamber of Macedonia with representatives of the cable operators regarding the problems of the high financial burdens that companies -cable operators in the Republic of Macedonia face.

The companies pointed out that the current costs from the income of the cable operators (particularly for payment of copyrights and the movie fund), as well as other financial obligations are unrealistic having in mind the market and are a possible prerequisite and a threat for this burden to be imposed on the final consumer via including additional costs in the bills delivered to the citizens.

The stance of the business community that a compensation should be paid for copyright and other similar rights was confirmed in the direction to foster the individual works, but the amount of the costs regarding this obligation cannot be neglected and they ask the copyright amount to be reduced as well as the economic sustainable costs. Therefore, it is necessary for all the stakeholders to respect the criteria by working in a transparent manner, to have open talks with well-argued stances and an agreement to be reached by the entities that will be acceptable for everybody.

In order to return the trust of the market and the institutions, it is essential that the companies, associations and institutions to be regularly informed on the financial and other results from the current functioning, i.e. to know what the money is spent on, who collects that money from the legal entities in accordance with the legal obligation and what legal entities are paying for the compensation.

In the Economic Chamber of Macedonia, in accordance with the good practices, the process of negotiation and dialogue of the stakeholders will be fostered because it is supposed to provide a solution of the problems having into consideration the real parameters, the economic atmosphere in the state and the economic capacity of the companies.

Lazo Angelevski