Kosovo warns reciprocity against Albanian, North Macedonia goods

The Minister of Trade and Industry in the Government of Kosovo, Andrew Shala, has warned Albania and Northern Macedonia, as two states where Kosovo producers are said to be facing tax and non-tariff barriers, that safeguard clauses will be implemented unless these barriers are removed.

On the other hand, business community representatives and economic experts consider that the country's executive should solve this problem through the CEFTA mechanism.

Although the problems of Kosovo producers with these states are noted to be long-standing, they consider that in the event of failing to reach any solution through CEFTA, only then should the reciprocity measure be decided, but not even the customs tax, mentioned by the executive.

Berat Rukiqi, chairman of the Kosovo Economic Ode, citing trade barriers between Kosovo and these two states, says that in the absence of CEFTA mechanisms to resolve problems with other member states, the latest instrument remains trade reciprocity.

“With Northern Macedonia problems have been with control of the quality of certain products, some tests, results that are often rejected. The last case is the fish export failure. While, with Albania, the number of barriers is huge, to what is almost impossible for our companies to do business with the state of Albania. So setting mutual measures works better, as this is practice in all other countries”, Rukiqi says.

Economics expert Naim Gashi says that Kosovo's current business problems with these states, especially with Albania, make economic co-operation almost impossible between the two countries.

He says the government should not make decisions on any tax similar to the case of measures against Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, which it has imposed 100 per cent customs duties on all goods exported to Kosovo.