Valon Saraçini (born 24 July 1981) is a Macedonian politician of Albanian descent. He served as the Minister of Economy of Macedonia, today known as North Macedonia. He took the office of a Minister of Economy in July 2011, setting as priorities in his mandate the improvement of the business climate, increasing competitiveness of Macedonian economy, development of an efficient and stable energy system, planned and sustainable utilization of mineral resources and development of tourism.
Political career
Minister of Economy
Proponent for economic integration of the region, with the aim of increased investments, strengthened economic cooperation, joint approach on third markets and creation of regional tourism packages that would meet the requirements of the world tourist. At his initiative are intensified the activities in the field of mineral resources and the procedure for awarding concessions for exploration and exploitation are accelerated. Support of entrepreneurship and small and medium-sized enterprises is implemented through numerous activities and program measures, and for the first time are stimulated the women’s entrepreneurship and crafts, as special segments of entrepreneurship. Communication with business entities and its associations is continuous with meetings, working meetings, visits of business capacities and participation at public debates. As a representative of the Democratic Union for Integration, which on July 1, 2008 made coalition with VMRO-DPMNE, Minister Saraqini implemented a series of activities and investment projects directed to the places where mostly Albanians live, especially in Western Macedonia. Beside the procedure for finding a strategic investor-concessionaire of the TIDZ Tetovo, a series of investments were implemented in projects in the energy field, especially in the part of concessions for small hydro-power plants and activities for improving energy efficiency in schools and kindergartens. In the field of tourism, the Ohrid-Struga coast was put on the map of the tour operators, especially the Benelux countries, but also Turkey, eastern countries and the Balkans, and also intensified the activities for modernization of the winter center Popova Shapka. A series of measures wer implemented to improving the business climate, which had a special influence on mitigating the consequences of the global economic crisis, and as a result of some of the implemented activities Republic of Macedonia, according to Doing Business 2012, is ranked on the sixth place in the world and the first in Europe for the speed of registration of a company. Namely, registration of trading company takes 40 hours and costs about 30 EUR, due to which it may be said that RM has the fastest, cheapest and most efficient/easiest registration in Europe and one of the best in the world.