MACEDONIA – The Republic of Macedonia says it will award only two licenses for managing private pension funds – and that it is organising a bidders conference next month to explain the tender process.

Macedonia plans to introduce a mandatory fully funded pension insurance to supplement the existing pay-as-you-go pension system, said Anastasija Trajkovska of the Agency for Supervision of Fully Funded Pension Insurance.

Private pension funds will be managed by pension companies whose responsibility will be to invest the pension funds’ assets in accordance with the investment limits stipulated in the Law on Mandatory Fully Funded Pension Insurance.

Considering the limited size and depth of the Macedonian capital market, the legislative authorities have decided that in the first 10 years of the existence of the two-pillar pension system only two licenses for managing private pension funds will be granted.

The pension companies will be selected through a two-stage international public tender organized by the Agency for Supervision of Fully Funded Pension Insurance.

“We anticipate releasing the tender for purchase by the end of May or early June, 2004,” Trajkovska said. The bidders’ conference would take place in Skopje on May 25, at which the details of the tender would be explained.

After completing the tender process and all other preparatory activities it is expected that the second pillar will be implemented by mid 2005.