After tax, the kind of goods smuggled from Serbia changes

Kosovo Customs spokesperson Adriatic Stavileci said most of the smuggled goods are from Serbia, though, after the tax is imposed, only food goods have been smuggled.

“Before mass deployment, we had goods that were smuggled, but that had greater value, until now we're looking at smuggling, or the addition of food products”, Stavileci said.

However, business representatives in Kosovo estimate that Serbian goods have been smuggling consistently since the post-war, especially in the northern part of Kosovo.

This, according to Skender Krasniqi, who is chairman of the Kosovo Oda of Afarism, has not stopped even after the Kosovo Government imposed tax. In his view, smuggling has even increased.

“Smuggle with Serbia has been the pre-war contingent until now, and never before the tax or after the tax has been stopped. This is due to the inefficiency of our institutions. We have today in parts of Kosovo, where mainly the Serb minority lives, where Serbian products are introduced without customs and sold with a currency that is contrary to the Kosovo Constitution”, Krasniqi told Radio Free Europe.

According to Dogana, imports from Serbia to Kosovo have fallen since the Kosovo Government imposed the 100% customs tax on Serbian and Bosnia and Herzegovina goods.

Prior to the tax, it is estimated that Serbia has exported goods to Kosovo, worth up to 1m euros a day. The move will continue to be in effect even after Ramush Haradinaj's resignation from the prime minister's post.

The incumbent Minister of Trade and Industry, Andrew Shala, told Radio Free Europe, that the next government should also keep the customs tax decision imposed last year in force.

According to him, the tax cannot be lifted if the reasons institutions have urged them to make that decision continue to exist.

The decisions are government. The government is now in resignation, but that does not mean now that the country does not have institutions and that any decision has been taken falls. The decisions continue to apply, and I hope the next government to come will keep this decision in force until the reasons that have forced us to make such a decision” are eliminated, Shala said.

He said officials of the Ministry of Trade and Industry, through sales points across Kosovo, have found small amounts of illegal imported goods.

Until now, after numerous inspections of the Ministry of Trade and Industry in addition to the many retail points on the territory of the Republic of Kosovo, we have not encountered in the amount of goods that have been introduced on the territory of the Republic of Kosovo in opposition to the laws in power”, the minister said.

Kosovo's Oda of Afarism Board Chairman Skender Krasniqi says the tax is not helping local businesses, rather damaging them.

“We think that better than the tax is reciprocity, because hundreds of Kosovo products cannot enter Serbia, because going through Serbia is forced to open firms in Serbia, which is not the same for Serbian products entering Kosovo”, Krasniqi said.

Following the Kosovo Government's decision to take on November 21st 2018 to goods of origin from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo Customs has taken the move, which has increased the capacity of controls at all border points to prevent smuggling.