Shala: Strengthening local production, MTI) priority

Shala in an interview for KosovoPress, says they are subsidising local producers, with the goal of increasing the quality of products for their producers, with the aim of export growth.

We will be focused on helping Kosovo's producer achieve the quality of their products. And with that, it means that products produced in Kosovo are more competitive in the Republic of Kosovo and at the same time more competitive in the external market. Us as MTI through KIESA, in 2019 we will help the Kosovo manufacturer with advice for the possibility of exporting their products. ...Effecting local production, empowering Kosovo's economy will also help create new jobs, and this is the main focus of MTI”, he said.

He says that the 100 per cent tax imposed by Kosovo institutions on imported products from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina will only go away when all the reasons Kosovo institutions have urged them to make that decision are eliminated.

Shala has stressed that the move has been taken to protect Kosovo producers and economy, while underlining that the move will continue to apply.

“Masa will continue to be in force until all the reasons that have led us as Government of the Republic of Kosovo to put such a measure” are eliminated, he has said.

Shala in the Kosovo Press interview has also talked about the climate of doing business in Kosovo, where she has said in Kosovo there is a good climate of doing business.

We remember that during this year alone, over a thousand businesses have disappeared in the country, but the ministry says it is not the climate that does business.

It's the agency operating within the MTI, which deals with the registration and elimination of any business and this is a legal procedure. It does not mean that if some businesses have disappeared, they have disappeared because of the inadequate climate of doing business in Kosovo... You know that the World Bank project means that it ranks Kosovo 44th in the world to do business, so I think that Kosovo is good for the countries of the region as well as other states in the climate of doing business”, he said.

The first of the MTI has also spoken of fulfilling obligations issued by the SAA, where it has announced that the ministry it heads has fulfilled over 80 per cent of them.

The “Criters that we've had to complete this year, MTI has fulfilled over 80 percent of them. I can only speak here on the basis of the obligations we have had as MTI, meaning that we have achieved in very good fulfillment of the pre-met criteria to be fulfilled within this year”, it is expressed.

He said the MTI remains committed to monitoring the quality of oil products sold on the market in the Republic of Kosovo, but said it is not responsible for the quality of oil entering the country.

“MTI is responsible for monitoring market quality indoors. I only in time to exercise office as minister of commerce, sometime only from October, over 150 per cent have increased inspections in this sector alone. A total of 250 samples have been taken from which only 7 samples have emerged that they have not met the required criteria, and normally the Inspectorate has continued to prosecute those subjects, as provided by law and court”, the minister has declared.

A decision we left behind during the year has also been about leaving the market, which in the analysis has proved dangerous. Shala has indicated that she has been barred from further introducing such toys in Kosovo.

The “Logs, which, their results, have turned out not to meet the certain criteria, even from other municipalities, have left the market. At the same time, the further introduction of such toys has been banned. So far over 22 contacts with such toys have been detained, meaning that they have turned perversely from the Republic of Kosovo. It means implementing the decision of their departure, annihilation and failure to enter the market”, he said.

While all in the end, he has indicated that since the beginning of the year he will start with the first applicants as potential strategic investors in the Republic of Kosovo.

Otherwise, in the last week of December, the head of the MTI made the decision that all the sales points of derivatives show the price of products at their entrance, in order to prevent price abuse at the expense of Kosovo citizens.