Bosnia's milk import, Kosovo government silents on safeguards

Only during this year's first month have 4 million and 400 thousand liters of milk been imported from this country, worth 2 million and 500 thousand euros.

So said Chairman of the Association of Farmers of Kosovo Besim Red, who has referred to official Customs data, and added that these non-competitive products are damaging Kosovo producers.

Red has said that on 16 April of this year the Ministry of Trade and Industry has decided on protective measures for milk products from Bosnia and Herzegovina, while according to him, the Government is silenced and stopped that decision.

We as farmers have been very pleased and we have had a very good idea of welcoming the trade and industry decision, but by that day that decision is left only on paper and it has not been executed... We've talked a lot about this problem that's causing us great losses as a farmer. Even in all likelihood, something has been found to be working in this direction, but more on paper than is directly being done to see the effect of these measures of the manufacturer”, Red said.

He has appealed the Government of Kosovo to solve this problem, because the milk industry season is nearly in the end.

“Topi has remained firing, occasionally at the Ministry of Commerce, at the Ministry of Finance, someone says the prime minister has to make a decision. But we're hoping that in the short term this problem will be solved, even though it's too late, because the farmers' season is just over. The problem is that the summer season increases the amount of milk with the largest”, he said.

For failing to implement government safeguards, Red has said that the amount of milk production has been reduced to about 80 thousand liters of milk a day, and many farms are being closed daily.

And we're on the ground all the time and we see that there's huge losses, many farm days are closed, unable to cope with this competition. The problem is that even the processors are the same problems, they can't raise the amount of milk produced in here because of the cheap prices of milk in the market. Thus, directly the farmer is damaged because he cannot continue to waste all the time and is forced to close the farms”, he said.

While days earlier finance ministry officials have said that the MTI's decision on safeguard clauses is in the prime minister's office to make legal clarifications.

According to these officials, it is up to the prime minister of Kosovo to strengthen the decision and impose Kosovo Customs for implementation.