“Kosovo flour storage from Albania was made due to competition”

Authorities in Albania have recently blocked 30 tonnes of wheat flour coming from Kosovo. The blockade is said to be made under the reinforced measures for safety and quality of food, of products imported.

Contacted by Radio Free Europe, officials of the Ministry of Trade and Industry in the Government of Kosovo, have not been suggested on the issue.

However, the ban, not on the quality of flour, has to do with competition, according to representatives of the milling Society.

Muhamet Feriz, chairman of this association, tells Radio Free Europe that Kosovo flour is quality and meets standards.

“After the war in Kosovo has opened Albania's market for flour production, and they saw the danger of competition, for which they also make such stops. Even though the CEFTA Free Trade agreement exists, Albania has adopted yet another decision on the flour product, which that decision has nothing to do with either our standards or Albania or the European Union. The level of protein that resulted in flour over 11 percent, we say that it meets standards, but Albania is called in their decisions just to have no competition. We've talked, but the conversations haven't affected”, Feriz says.

The weights Albania has set up for the flour product, Feriz says, are ongoing and that hardly a solution can be made.

“This obstacle we have will again be ours, since the conversations of Kosovo and Albania representatives are not correct. Kosovo must act with similar measures and ban Albania's products on the Kosovo market”, Ferizi says.

On the other hand, Flamur Keqa, former director of the Trade Department under the Ministry of Trade and Industry, told Radio Free Europe that international trade must respect the rules and quality that participants agree to in that trade relationship.

According to him, if the quality has not been at the proper level, then rejection is done, but if done for other purposes, then it is a commercial offense.

“In trade relations there must be correctness and obligations derived from the trade agreement must be fulfilled. But if the Mills' Association has stated that the flour it has had for dedication in Albania's market has been of the right quality, and the Albanian state has refused and has created a barrier in trading this commodity, then this is unacceptable”, Keqa says.

He says that despite frequent agreements and meetings of Kosovo governments and Albania, the trade barrier has a lot between the two countries.

Kosovo and Albania, he adds, should intensify trade reports.

“Kosovo and Albania must have a common market, a free market and even the smallest obstacles emerging during the trade, they should be eliminated and both states developed in a commercial and economic sense”, Keqa says.

Albania, not rarely has established trade barriers to Kosovo products, thus damaging Kosovo's economy.

Meanwhile, to have easier economic co-operation between Kosovo and Albania, billions of euros in road infrastructure have been invested.

In addition, several agreements for economic co-operation have been signed between Kosovo and Albania.

The Republic of Kosovo and Albania are eventually planning to liberalise the movement of goods and customs unification. On this issue, the two governments are harmonising the documentation needed for goods that circulate between Kosovo and Albania.

Under new procedures under preparation, it is planned not to require unnecessary documents but to be mutually recognized the documents of both states.