“This year may change parties, but not the economic situation in Kosovo”

In addition, Rukiqi said that for this year, the priority is to keep the economy open and not increase economic damage.

Even this year it's hard to design economic growth. We are hoping that we will manage to keep the economy open and manage the situation with pandemic in order not to increase the economic damage that has been significant last year. But the first signs are that even this first three months of this year will not be easy for the economy around the globe, and certainly in Kosovo”.

An additional reason that is quite problematic in economic growth projections is political instability. The fact that we have frequent elections we don't know what this election cycle will produce will produce stability, but in these cases we're left with the official figures and there are 3.5 to 4% that can have economic growth this year”, Rukiqi added.

According to him, the government, while in charge, has the budget and can spend it on supporting businesses.

The government is in charge of basic functions supporting businesses that have the budget and while it can spend the budget. In these situations the government in relation to economic support, with the continuation of capital investments it can carry out” tasks.

Rukiqi stressed that in these elections it can change the approach of governance to specific names, it can also change the parties which govern the government, but not the economic situation.

I don't expect anything new in relation to what we've had so far. It can change the approach of governance to particular names can change the parties that govern the government, but we have seen that more of an interest has been some populist themes and do not change the state of the economy. ”

We never managed to have an economic development that generates employment not in the public sector, but in that private we never managed to have foreign direct investment which would be an impact on economic growth”, he said of EO.

OEK Chairman Berat Rukiqi added that recovery and economic diplomacy are priorities of the Economic Ode.

“There are positive signs with the vaccine. We'll focus on economic diplomacy. Kosovo, even after pandemic, needs to have strong economic ties with other countries. Therefore, we should see the opportunity to bring investment to Kosovo in areas where it needs energy, infrastructure, health, production share. We need to see where we can export more. Therefore, recovery and economic diplomacy are priorities of the” Economic Ode, he concluded.