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USAID Chooses Booz Allen Hamilton and OTF Group to Lead Macedonia Competitiveness Activity

Competitiveness Campaign Helping Macedonia Choose Prosperity

Watertown, Mass. - December 1, 2002 - In an expansion of its activities in the Balkan region, OTF Group has partnered with Booz Allen Hamilton to lead the Macedonia Competitiveness Activity.

The Macedonia project, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), focuses on creating prosperity for the developing Eastern European nation through a four phase process aimed at defining and implementing a vision for Macedonia's future prosperity and stability. Efforts will target identifying the unique competitive advantages of Macedonian firms, and creating sustained constructive action to realize Macedonia's competitive potential.

Mark Belcher, Senior Associate, International Development Business Team at Booz Allen Hamilton and Project Manager for the Macedonia Competitiveness Activity, calls OTF Group "an ideal partner. Their contribution is the ground-breaking project design, unique in its methodology and backed by the thought leaders on the application of competitiveness to economic development."

Andreas Widmer, CEO of OTF Group, says "Booz Allen's full resources have been mobilized to provide efficient in-country and home office leadership to the project, and our team's experiences with them have been excellent. Through our work on the Activity, we are pleased to demonstrate our commitment to helping companies, clusters and countries to create wealth and use competitiveness to raise the standard of living for people in Macedonia."

The multi-year project, which kicked off in October 2002, also includes Medez England & Associates, ARD Inc., The International Executive Service Corps, and DevTech Systems Inc.

For more information on the Macedonia Competitiveness Activity, or OTF Group's Country Competitiveness Practice, please contact us at countrycompetitiveness@otfgroup.com.

About OTF Group, Inc.

OTF Group is the thought leader on competitiveness in developing economies and emerging markets, with over 25 years experience in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. Using their unique philosophy and methodologies, the team at OTF Group advises developing companies, regions and nations to innovate, increase productivity and create new competitive advantages.

OTF Group is also a software development company leveraging technology to support its Country Competitiveness™ and Strategy Coaching™ practices. StrategyBUILDER, OTF Group's revolutionary business software application, allows users to gather critical customer data - in less time, at an affordable price.

Headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts, OTF Group maintains project offices in Kigali, Rwanda and Kingston, Jamaica.

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