In September 2024, at the ceremonial laying of the foundation stone, stood Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski and Finance Minister Gordana Dimitrieska-Kocoska. The investment was announced at 65 million euros, with 1,000 new jobs and 60 million euros of exports over three years.

Less than two years have passed. Germany's BMZ, a manufacturer of lithium-ion batteries, has announced it is closing the Ilinden plant entirely and moving all production to Poland. It affects 89 employees.

1,000 promised, 89 laid off

In a statement on its website, the company wrote that the decision followed a comprehensive economic analysis and that the transition will be phased, from August to December 2026. Customer supply continues - just from Poland, where BMZ already works to the same specifications and quality standards.

That is the technical part. The political part is that of the 1,000 announced jobs, the plant reached 89 by the time it closed. The gap between those two numbers is not a failure of the company - it is delivering batteries just as before. The gap is between what was promised from a podium and what was actually built.

Third in a row

BMZ is not alone. Before it, the Irish-American Aptiv left the „Bunardzik” free economic zone, and the American firm Dura has already shut its plant. The zone authority announced it would seek the return of the state aid given to Dura. The country's largest exporter, Britain's Johnson Matthey, has announced staff cuts.

The authority says an existing investor wants to take on some of BMZ's workers, and that a new EU investor who might take over the plant is also expected. Neither is named. Nor is it known what sector they operate in.

The question nobody asks

Every time a foreign company arrives, there is a ceremony to film. Every time one leaves, there is a statement to publish. Between those two events sit state aid, exemptions from levies inside a technological-industrial zone, and political capital spent on numbers that are never checked retroactively.

Will anyone be asked to account for the difference between 1,000 and 89? Or is the model simply that the next ceremony erases the last one?