Skopje, 12 December 2023  

The inclusion and cooperation with the civil sector may raise the citizens’ awareness of climate risks and engage them actively in the green transition.  For this purpose, the National Bank team, led by the Governor Anita Angelovska Bezhoska, held a meeting with the President of the Consumers Organization, Marijana Lonchar Velkova, as well with representatives of the organization.  In the meeting, activities taken by the National Bank to support green finance were presented, as a key segment of the green transition, while the Consumers Organization emphasized its efforts to raise consumers’ awareness.  

It was pointed out that greater awareness of climate change and contribution to green sustainable economy is one of the strategic goals of the National Bank, which as of March 2021 is a member of the Network for Greening the Financial System, an international network of 150 central banks and financial supervisors, as well as the Vienna Initiative Group on Climate Change.  Within the major activities conducted by the central bank in this field, the climate change survey with banks and savings houses and disclosed data on green loans were pointed out, as a basis for adoption of the Medium-term plan of activities for climate risk management 2023-2025.  The National Bank has already started implementing the activities from this plan through the adoption of the Climate Risk Management Guidelines and the disclosure of the first analysis of the domestic banking system exposure to climate risk (in the last Financial Stability Report in 2022).

The Medium-term plan, in addition to the adoption of the climate risk management guidelines for banks, also includes improvement of the supervisory practices and methodologies, including climate risks, stress-testing that refers to climate risks, analysis of the climate change impact on the National Bank activities and deepening of the banking system analyses of these risks, as well as development of Sustainability Policy and undertaking activities for capacity building of the National  Bank. 

The Consumers Organization of Macedonia expressed support to the National Bank initiative and its contribution to green sustainable economy, while both sides expressed interest in further cooperation in this field.