O EC: Albania did not underestimate products “Made in Kosovo”

Kosovo's Economic Oda has raised the extremely discriminatory approach of the authorities of the Republic of Albania to products “Made in Kosova” as a concern.

OEK through a communique says the summer season marks the largest influx of Kosovo tourists towards the Albanian coast, where estimates are considered that only in the summer season have Albania visited over 1.5 million visitors, and when imports from Albania, which is up to 140m euros, benefits of Albania's economy from Kosovo-born tourists and trade reach the value of 600m euros.

According to Oda, this is a very encouraging fact because it promotes the necessary cooperation between the two countries and in other areas and contributes to the development of different businesses on both sides of the border of a people divided into two countries.

<x0) Made in Kosova” but at various levels of administration, which especially in the summer season, create unprecedented barriers to non-tariff barriers to prevent and weaken the competitiveness of Kosovo products in the Albanian market, especially for Kosovo's bonds that are welcome at any market, such as the case with beer, flour, cheese, milk, potatoes, wines and other products. This is even more disturbing by a negative approach to Kosovo tourists by treating and mistreating them as unwanted and underdated compared with other tourists from the region and beyond. These non-tariff barriers that appear in the form of reference prices, whether in the form of bureaucracy, whether in the form of inspections and procedures, and ultimately attempting to bring together Kosovo's export companies in Albania, calling them lawbreakers, and those that create tax evasion in Albania are really disturbing”, the OEK communiqué says.

According to them, such an approach of Albanian institutions to Kosovo products and entrepreneurship is the best example of a reflection of a lack of co-operation between the two states, and in particular when it comes to creating a joint economic platform, which in fact only serves for meetings that produce no economic effect other than media marketing.

OEK says it is time to become aware that economic interest should be a priority, and within this interest we must define the orientations of our economies, on the basis of competitive component skills, based on a common development platform that works without barriers and is stimulating for mutual co-operation and private sector development in particular that production and services.

“We should not be treated as competitive economies between ourselves, but both the economy and the complex markets in production and services. So humiliation against products “Made in Kosova” and visitors from Kosovo on Albania's coast did not pay tribute to our path towards European integration, in which we travel through such an approach prove ourselves not serious in the face of Brussels, but rather not serious in the face of the people. The numerous countries in Europe and more widely unite the economy and economic co-operation, so to eliminate folk patriotism and the attempt to grace the past by seriously damaging and bypassing future construction, which should be empowered with economic co-operation in advanced and modern”, the communiqué says.