How many businesses were closed in Kosovo as a result of COVID-19 over a year?

These measures caused damage in numerous spheres, but the worst hit is considered to be the economy.

This, according to Kosovo Alliance of Business Director Agim Sahini, who says around 20 thousand businesses are no longer operating as a result of the choreography.

And we'll never know exactly, because it's going to have to be a field research and that's why it takes time and finance. But according to an GDP assessment, the number of non-active businesses in 2020 amounts to about 20,000. So many economic operators have placed the key to activities, not because of their own fault, but because of the COVID-19 pandemic and other ongoing problems that businesses have because they have lost their competitiveness due to unfair competition”, Sahin told Klaan Kosova.tv.

The high-frequency frames do not match the official figures of the Ministry of Trade and Industry, but these are real figures from ground collected by activists and the branches of GDP in six regions. By the end of this year it may be bigger because the crisis is continuing. Official closure of a business is complicated and takes a lot of time, but it is both expensive and limited business owners have given up on official closures. This situation was never worse.

Sahin has stressed that businesses did not have enough government support.

While, Valentina Bytyqi-Sefa, spokeswoman at the Kosovo Tax Administration, for Klan Kosovo. tv has stressed that the number of businesses closed during this period is two-way.

The number of closed businesses so far is 74, which means that after the call for closure all legal procedures for their closure have been followed. This large number of calls for closure may be under way because as you know, no business can be closed without carrying out all tax obligations to ATK”, Bytyqi-Sefa has been expressed.

Besides completing obligations in ATK, a closing business should also apply to the Kosovo Business Record Administration, which operates within the framework of the Ministry of Trade and Industry.

Klankosova.tv has contacted officials from this institution who have talked about the number of businesses that have applied for closure and what were the most frequent reasons for closure.

From the 1503.20 to 15,03,2021, 1,268 businesses have been closed. Most businesses declare closing “for personal reasons”, MTI's response reported.

To help the country's economy, the last legislature of the Kosovo Parliament had adopted the Law for Economic Recovery in December 2020.

Article 11 of this Law says 200m euros have been earmarked as support for private companies.

“All businesses that have been closed or have had a problem with regular functioning during the pandemic time, but which have been archives in the Kosovo Tax Administration registry, before February 29th 2020, are financially supported by the budget of the Republic of Kosovo with monetary means to cover operational expenditures in the amount of two hundred million euros”.

From the Ministry of Finance have shown that the total amount of resources spent on the pandemic from packages for 2020 is over 285.5m euros.

“The total of tools spent on the pandemic for 2020 is more than 285.5m euros, with details according to categories, is presented on the index that includes expenses for pandemic management and government packages (urgent and recovery) for aid to citizens and businesses”, it says in their response.