After Serbia, Albania is second state applying barriers to Kosovo

So it was said at the discussion table with the theme: “The Kosovo-Albania trade potential: trade barriers and implementation of bilateral agreements”, organised by the Riinvest Institute and the GAP Institute.

In almost all Kosovo's exporting sectors, there is potential for increased trade co-operation with Albania.

On the other hand, a host of obstacles have been identified, which are enabling the exploitation of this potential. These obstacles are mainly technical, but in specific cases they also appear in the form of tarphorus reeds.

Among the main obstacles identified in this study include doubling procedures for goods passing through Albania's territory, obstacles to scanning goods in the port of Durres, regardless of final destination, high road fees, referenced prices, discrimination excises, additional sanitation and physanitary documentation, etc.

Visar Vokrri of the Riinvest Institute stressed that in the past two years, Kosovo-Albania trade exchange has increased, while adding that 13 agreements have been signed since the declaration of independence between the two Albanian governments, but despite the signing of these agreements, a number of different trade barriers and barriers still remain unresolved.

Despite the signing of these agreements, a progress in trade relations between the two countries, in trade exchanges between the two countries still remain unsolved a series of obstacles to technical character or various non-tariff barriers”, Vokri said.

Berat Thaci from the GAP Institute on this occasion said that many of the problems facing businesses cannot be solved even with agreements reached between the two Albanian governments because they have not been addressed in these agreements.

The other problem, according to Thaci, is Kosovo's business complaints of corruption in Albania's customs.

Many of the problems reported by businesses in Kosovo are not addressed through these agreements and are internal problems of both countries that cannot even be addressed by agreement. We often lost export businesses from Kosovo to Albania and have reported corruption as a problem in Albania's customs”, Thaci says.

While, Arben Shkodra from Albania's Union of Producers said it is unfortunate, when we hear Albania and Kosovo have about 77 agreements, 13 of them are on the trade level and still have tax barriers rather than tariffs.

Many of the deals our governments make for show, and on the basis of tests by the three Institutes are not implemented. We thought the case of Kosovo, and the phenomenon it produced with the tax on Serbia and Bosnia would give an advantage to the Albanian production and exporter economy. I didn't see there was such a big impact, reason here, because I believe we continue to have tax barriers and no tariffs between us, said Shkodra.

Astrit Panja executive director at the Kosovo Producers Club said businesses in Kosovo and Albania have good co-operation, but are not considering the requirements for their barriers, which have been presented to various institutions, both in Kosovo and Albania.

As opposed to having untapped potential between the two Albanian states, Panja said there is still no single capital plant.

We are engaged in a period that we are dealing with Serbia and the 100 percent fee, and the introduction of these findings is not at the best time for us to sit down and deal with the problems we have with Albania. Unfortunately, after Serbia, in our documents, Albania has emerged to have the highest level of tariff and non-tariff barriers with Kosovo”, Panja stressed.

Riinvest and GAP have drafted a study on the implementation scale of signed trade agreements by Kosovo and Albania.

This study contains an assessment of trade potential between Kosovo and Albania, as well as the identification of trade barriers, which are enabling the exploitation of this potential.

In order to exploit the economic potential for trade exchange between the two countries, a number of recommendations have been made in this report.

As a precondition for further increased exchange of goods between the two countries should be a priority strengthening rule of law, increasing institutional capacities and lowering bureaucratic barriers.

Moreover, the two countries must work on further harmonisation of food standards and take another step further to harmonise some of the taxes or excises that would help avoid discrimination of other country's products.