Risks are inevitable, objective category faced by all people and all business entities and they are widespread in all areas of human existence, regardless of the level of the human community development. Therefore, various strategies for risk management are developed, among which the insurance have one of the central positions. But, the demand for insurance services is largely determined by the legal framework regulating the insurance market (compulsory and optional insurance), the level of awareness for the need of buying insurance services (because it is usually about types of risks that the frequency of occurrence is not extremely expressed), and the level of the living standard, or the availability of insurance services for socially vulnerable categories of the population in a national economy. Uninsured risks, regardless of the type of risk in question, especially badly affect poorer categories of society which cannot cope with the catastrophic losses from negative shocks.The paper refers to the elaboration of the need for developing microinsurance services by comparative analysis of the coverage of these services in the countries in the world, analysis of the socially vulnerable strata of the population in Macedonia that could potentially be involved in the demand of these services and the microinsurance models that could be applied in countries that have not still developed this form of insurance.

Financial derivatives are financial instruments that cause major changes in financial markets. They appeared in order to protect the transistors' from a certain form of market risk, but also with the intention of making profit. The paper analyze a topic related to the forms of cooperation between the financial market entities, especially the cooperation between banks and insurance companies in the sphere of sale of insurance policies, to be more precise-bank insurance. Banking and insurance are complementary parts of the financial system. Bank insurance is relationship between a bank and an insurance company, whereby the insurance company uses the bank sales channels in order to sell insurance products, an agreement in which a bank and insurance company agree in a way that the insurance company can sell its products to customers of the bank. Insurance companies sell their insurance products through their direct sales network or through distribution channels, of which the most important are insurance brokers and agents. With the involvement of banks in the sale of insurance products in the 1980s, the development of bank insurance began in Europe and since then it has become increasingly widespread throughout the world. In the narrowest sense, bank insurance implies the sale of insurance products through a bank, while in a broader sense it is defined as a joint venture between banks and insurance companies in order to enable insurance products to reach customers of banking services. Banking is a winning combination for both institutional partners in a business relationship. The Bank enriches the offer of financial services for its customers by selling or integrating insurance products, while at the same time it receives a new source of income, while the insurance company uses the bank's marketing and increased sales through access to a significantly larger potential customer base. The focus of the bank are the consumers, and the success of this business cooperation depends on the synergy of the three most important elements, namely marketing strategy, organizational culture and market conditions. The banks and insurance companies have certain problems in its functioning, which can arise as a result of several reasons. The problem with the functioning of the bank insurance is in the various sales philosophies of banks and insurance companies. Banks have a passive sales philosophy, conditioned by traditional demand, while insurance companies have an aggressive sales philosophy.

Banking and insurance are complementary parts of the financial system. Bankinsurance is relationship between a bank and an insurance company, whereby the insurance company uses the bank sales channels in order to sell insurance products, an agreement in which a bank and insurance company agree in a way that the insurance company can sell its products to customers of the bank.The core goal of this paper is to analyze the level of bankinsurance in Republic of Macedonia because it brings many benefits in the times of increasing competition among participants in the financial market.As a result of development of banking and insurance sectors in the Republic of Macedonia more often with every bank goes insurance company and vice versa. It is important to note that banking and insurance are the two sectors which are in constant and unbreakable connection when analyzing the financial sector as a whole. The actions are complementary in business activities in the market. Therefore, it is logical emergence of integrated delivery of banking and insurance services through the model of bankinsurance. This especially refers to special shaping of the products of life and non-life insurance adjusted for sales through the banking network.

The paper gives a brief elaboration of the basic macroeconomic aspects of investments with emphasis on the specificities of small open economies in the process, theoretically elaborates the need for openness of small economies (especially the economies that need the acceleration of their development), then highlights the risks and opportunities arising from the investment activity both on the micro and macro level. Further distinguishes between investments in financial instruments and in real investment projects, emphasize the need for creation of an optimal diversified portfolio. Finally, the paper underlines the need for various forms of foreign direct investment for all economies, particularly the opportunities and threats arising in small open economies, to complete the wholeness with empirical data of the previously elaborated matters on the example of the Republic of Macedonia as a small open economy.

Country risk analysis has become extremely important in contem­porary conditions. This paper briefly discusses concepts, definitions, basic components, and some quantitative methods used to address various issues related to country risk in selected CEFTA countries. The paper also presents the indicative calculation of some of the elements and indicators for the selected countries, based on relevant available data, and in order to make a comparative analysis. Having in mind that country risk is a specific and complex macroeconomic risk, its determination and analysis is additionally complicated in terms of contemporary global changes. In fact, that is a risk of a country as a whole, its macroeconomic policy and economic balance or unbalance, political stability or instability of a country, political disturbances and democratic processes, political system and legal system, etc. Therefore, country risk involves several kinds of risks, such as political risk, economic risk, foreign payments risk, financial transfers risk, etc. Globally, all those risks can be divided in three biggest groups: risks of macroeconomic unbalance of the country; risks of the political instability of the country; and risks of the system of the country (system risks). Due to its complexity, the paper will elaborate and quantify some of the basic indicators related to country risk, mostly re­lated to trade exchange between selected countries in the CEFTA agreement. The procedures and methods of country risk analysis and measurement have similarities with those used for individual economic entities, but techniques for the country risk analysis are less developed and there was no generally accepted analysis method. The final assessment may be a combination of many external and internal models that are not mutually exclusive, and in that process can be analyzed a number of different factors that determine country risk. Among the factors that condition the country risk and that are necessary to be included in the analyses can be: country’s foreign-financial position; external debt; debt management; assessment of the natural re­sources; the degree of technique and technology development, industrializa­tion and automation of production, and so on. The paper will stress as most important indicators in assessing country risk: The Debt Service Ratio, Import ratio, Investment Ratio, Domestic Money Supply Growth, etc., which will be calculated using selected macro-economic data such as: GDP, GDP per capi­ta, Real GDP grow, Inflation (CPI), Fiscal balance (% of GDP), Current account balance (% of GDP), Public debt/GDP (%), External debt/Exports of goods & services (%), Debt-service ratio (%), Foreign exchange reserves, Foreign direct investments (% of GDP), Exchange rate etc. The methodology of collecting and processing information and the degree of reliability of collected data greatly depends on the promptness and accuracy of the national institutions that present those data. The goal of the paper is: to point out the importance of country risk assess­ment, to determine and compute the basic indicators of country risk in some of the Southeastern Europe countries, to determine conditions and trends of country risk in selected countries, and to suggest some strategies for its re­duction in conditions of the unstable environment and crisis disturbances.