What's going on with property outside Kosovo?

Identification of social enterprise assets located outside Kosovo's territory continues to remain the challenge for competent authorities in the country.

However, so far it is said to be 180 properties of Kosovo social companies in different countries in the region, of which 110 are found on Serbia's territory.

Based on the laws in power, these properties are administered by the Kosovo Privatisation Agency (AKP), and the state where the respective properties are located has no right to adopt.

Ekrem Hajdari, managing director at the Kosovo Privatisation Agency, (AKP) in a conversation to Radio Free Europe, has shown that despite problems in identifying social enterprise properties outside its territory, several new assets have been identified last year, which were not on AKP lists.

This issue continues to remain a challenge for us, we continue to have problems and obstacles in identifying these properties. The countries of the region in this direction are not very cooperative”.

But last year, even in this area we've scored results. After through the embassies of the Republic of Kosovo we have achieved that in the awareness countries where these embassies are present, to identify certain assets belonging to Kosovo's social companies, both in Bosnia, Serbia and in Macedonia”, Hajdari said.

According to him, in co-operation with the Kosovo Government institutions, efforts are being made to resolve the problem of these assets.

We are currently in procedure that together with the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with relevant states, let's look at the possibilities to return those assets under our administration”, Hajdari added.

According to the Kosovo Privatisation Agency, only on Serbia's territory are 110 property of social companies, in Montenegro 36, in Bosnia and Herzegovina 18, while other properties are found in Croatia, Macedonia and Slovenia.

Of them, 17 properties belong to the metallural plant “Trepca”. 11 assets of this giant are located in Serbia, 3 in Bosnia and Herzegovina and 3 in Croatia.

But managing these properties, namely, in Serbia has been impossible because official Belgrade does not recognise the AKP's authority.

On the other hand, economic experts have sometimes claimed that solving this problem is a complicated issue.

Majid Bektashi, professor at the University of Pristina, has told Radio Free Europe that despite the fact that property of Kosovo's social companies cannot be transported to states and where it is found, he doubts some of them have already been privatised or sold.

“I as much as have information, most of the Kosovo companies that have operated in Serbia, have been privatised, but also several Serbian companies in Kosovo, which with the creation of the AKP, either were privatised or in the pre-preparative phase for privatisation”, Bektas stressed.

By contrast, since the beginning of the privatisation process in 2003, The AKP has privatised about 1,500 properties within Kosovo's territory and no property in countries in the region.

The agency is expected to complete the privatisation process of all social enterprises.