The industrial zone in the municipality of Vasilevo, near the city of Strumica, is one of the leading smaller zones developed in Macedonia in the recent years. During his visit to Vasilevo on Sunday, Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski said that only 10 locations are still available in the zone, with 77 locations sold to developers and are now operational.

The zone was opened as part of the programme to have every municipality in Macedonia with a prepared zone for industrial development, on top of the dozen and half large free economic zones for major foreign investors.

"The remaining 10 locations in the Vasilevo zone have construction permits prepared", Gruevski said after meeting with the Mayor Vane Stojanov, who said that the municipality is working on expanding the zone, to accommodate interested companies.

The Prime Minister visited Evromak, an agriculture distribution plant that trades with vegetables and fruits from the wider Strumica region and exports them to Europe. "The company used two IPARD program grants to procure coolers which allow it to export between 4 and 5 million EUR of agriculture products a year, which is very helpful for local farmers", Gruevski said.

Gruevski also visited the Jasen Mebel furniture factory in the village of Turnovo, to highlight its use of the Employing Macedonia programme which allows companies to avoid paying welfare benefits on the salaries paid to new employees from a list of vulnerable categories. The programme allows the companies to avoid paying the substantial benefits on newly hired workers for the next three to five years.