FYR of Macedonia/ 4.2 Specific policy issues and recent debates  

4.2.3 Cultural/creative industries: policies and programmes

One of the burning public dilemmas in the field of culture during the last 15 years has been whether there is a cultural market in the country, and whether culture could exist under market conditions.

According to the Constitution, freedom of the market and entrepreneurship is guaranteed and the government is to ensure an equal legal position to all parties operating in the market. As far as culture is concerned, this can be carried out in a non-profit making manner through business partnerships, and in an unprofitable manner, through institutions. Based on this provision, numerous private institutions or business partnerships were established primarily in the field of publishing, film, performing arts etc. However, their "market" orientation basically meant applying for financial resources from the budget of the Ministry of Culture.

One of the arguments on the deficit of a private market for culture is the small size of the territory and the modest population, as well as the small language market, for example, in the field of publishing. Together they limit the conditions required to develop a fully functioning cultural industry. It must be pointed out that no studies have been carried out on the culture industries and there is no official definition of this type of industry.

In 2008, the project "Active citizenship and participative cultural policy" was promoted by the Multimedia Centre for Performing Arts. The project-workshop is aimed at representatives of local administrations, cultural institutions and local NGOs of (to start) five communities. The main goal is finding suitable mechanisms that would lead to systematic cultural development in the local communities. The project has been designed to identify the challenges in the cultural sector at local level, placing emphasis on the cultural industries as a potential for economic development.

Although insufficient, the development of cultural / creative industries is also mentioned in the draft of the National Strategy for Culture 2012-2017.

See also  chapter 4.2.2.

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