Import from Serbia, Bosnia falls to 6m euros

For Kosovo Customs Director Bahri Berisha, the revenues continue with a positive trend in Kosovo Customs, despite the introduction of a 100 per cent tax, while suggesting that in 2019 there are about 1.2 billion euros in revenues, or about 4 per cent more than in 2018.

Berisha says in an interview for Kosova Prees, that the impact on revenues has also had a host of fiscal policies, free trade agreements with Turkey, but also the MSA impact that every year is having an impact on customs duty.

According to Customs Director, if all these policies are taken into account, it shows Customs continues to show a good performance of revenues because the impact of all of this is about 150m euros directly on taxes from the SAA and the releases for producers.

Berisha stressed that the effect of criminal charges and perpetrators uncovered by smuggling is about 10m euros having a direct effect, while the indirect effect is preventing this phenomenon.

And we as customs collected three to four years ago about 950m euros in revenue, today we have about 1.2 billion euros in revenue, which means it's about 30 percent more, this without tax changes, but there's only been changes in the fiscal aspect, where they've been released from import, like the MSA, free trade deals and so on. This indicates that a lot of revenues are thanks to the capacities and fighting of informal economics and smuggling. We have obvious results, because it is impossible to get in unless more smuggling is fought than economic growth”, he declares.

Director Berisha states that safeguard clauses against Serbia and Bosnia have presented the challenge of fighting trans-border crimes and smuggling, especially of these products that have attempted to be smuggled through mountain roads in small quantities, small vehicles or other forms of transport.

According to him, there have been over 300 cases of uncovering these smuggling during 2019.

We're actually saying on November 21st, it's been a full year since the establishment of protective measures against products of origin of Serbia and Bosnia in import, say, in 2017 when it was the year, that 2018 months of December and November have been the safeguards we've had about 450m euros, from Bosnia around 85m euros. Then after the establishment of safeguard clauses this year, we have had about 6m euros in imports of around 530m euros to say that from the 530m euros of imports in these two countries has dropped to 6m euros because 100 per cent protection measures have had its effect and have been high enough to import”, Berisha says.

While, in terms of trade reports with Albania, Berisha says Albania is more than 10 per cent more export to Kosovo or about 270m euros, the country exported to Albania about 80m euros in 2019

Albania's “Products on the Kosovar market on annual basis are more per year, trend has been constantly growing in export to Kosovo or our import from Albania. If we compare five six years ago when trade reports between Kosovo and Albania have been export and import from both countries have been less than 100m euros, while today we are talking that this figure will exceed 300m euros in trade reports between the two countries. This is a very positive indicator where Albanian products are also more present in Kosovo as well as Kosovo products are present in Albania”, he claims.

While in trade reports with EU markets, Berisha points out there is growth in exports with EU countries and countries in the region.

According to him, many small- and medium-level Kosovo companies have begun exporting products this year to EU countries. Berisha says there are companies that have been exporting 1m euros to the EU market, but now the export is 1 million and 300 thousand, so for Kosovo companies it is a positive indicator, because they have managed to make their products foreign markets more, especially drinks, food, doors, windows, but other products.

For a year now, it's Germany that leads the export list towards Kosovo or is the top importer we import. Then, there is Turkey one of the countries that has an increase per year for over 15-20 per cent of products, and then there is China, Albania, Italy and so on. These are the five top countries we import most of. Germany also has a normal impact on large import of vehicles, because if we take over the three main categories that bring in income to the Kosovo budget, there are imported vehicles. Over 90 percent of the vehicles we import are from Germany, and this increases the value of products or the value of being an imported top.

While, due to the failure to adopt the 2020 budget, Dogana still does not have a clear projection for 2020, but according to the Customs director will have a projection of higher revenues, for which she hopes in the coming year it will exceed the amount of inflows of 1.2 billion euros.