Foreign investment in the country mysteriously wanes and waxes - some of it laundered money reinvested in legitimate businesses. The government is doing a great job of building up the image of Macedonia as an FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) destination. But public relations and perceptions management must be followed by palpable actions and the new government is woefully short on concrete steps. It talks the talk but hitherto does not walk the walk. The government's attempts to attract foreign investors by introducing lower taxes may backfire: studies clearly evince that multinationals worry less about taxation and more about functioning institutions, a commodity that Macedonia is irreparably short of. Moreover, vanishingly lower taxes signal desperation and Macedonia indeed sounds more desperate than confident. No one wants to buy the country's leading bank, long on offer. Only one contender (Mobilkom Austria) entered a bid for Macedonia's third operator cellular network licence. On a few occasions, domestic firms, using international fronts, have bid for local factories, such as the textile plant "Astibo". The national payment card project has been guzzled by two banks incestuously close to the outgoing ruling party, VMRO-DPMNE. But there are real investments, too. The capital's central heating utility was purchased by a unidentified French energy outfit, announced the general manager. The utility's shares were listed in the Athens stock exchange. The Macedonian construction firm "Granit" will build a $59 million highway in Ukraine, with which Macedonia enjoyed an unusually cordial relationship, to American chagrin. Johnson Controls and others are eying a string of free trade zones and infrastructure projects (dams, roads, railways, oil pipeline). A much hyped Vardar Silicone Valley is in the works. The contentious census in the first two weeks of November 2002, a part of the "Ohrid Framework Agreement" which ended the internecine fighting the year before, was conducted fairly. The count showed that Albanians make c. one quarter of the population rather than one third, as most Albanians spuriously insisted. But, with Kosovo's independence looming across the border, the restive Albanians are likely to coerce the enfeebled Macedonia into translating this numerical reality into political and economic clout. The Macedonians are likely to resist. The West will intervene. Macedonia is facing a hot spring and a sizzling summer. LIII. The Macedonian Lottery Every conflict has its economic moments and dimensions. The current conflict in Macedonia perhaps even more so. The USA and its Western allies regard Macedonia as a bridge between Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia and Albania.