About 3,000 businesses closed in Kosovo during pandemic

 In the last two years, about 3,000 businesses in Kosovo were closed, while 1,519 businesses have disappeared in 2021 alone. According to economic experts, other factors besides pandemics that have influenced such a large number of businesses to disappear is also the lack of the most favourable offer to do business.

The largest number of these businesses that have closed have exercised activities in the majority and retail trade sector, followed by hotels and accommodation, as well as the processing industry. In the list of bankrupt businesses, businesses also figure out construction.

In the Ministry of Industry and Trade, 1346 businesses were bankrupt for Kosova Prees that during 2020, 1519 or 173 more have disappeared than in 2020.

“The reason for extinction is mainly voluntary extinction”, said in a written response by the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Trade.

Kosovo's Oda of Afarism Board Chairman Skender Krasniqi stresses that as a result of the poor economic performance of businesses in the country, the number of extinct companies has steadily increased.

Krasniqi hopes the Kosovo government will approve a package of support for businesses as a result of the country's energy crisis.

Kosovo, like any other country, has a bankruptcy of businesses, and opening new businesses, this could have happened even because of the pandemic, and because of the inability of businesses to advance in this situation that is not easy. It's a very serious situation, we're hoping to have a better business offer, a better approach to doing business in order to get economic growth, increased employment and well-being. We are hoping that the Government will also come up with a business support programme for the damage it is causing even with the next blow, which is electricity”, Krasniqi stressed.

While former Trade and Industry Minister Ismet Mulay has said that the number of businesses that are bankrupt is even higher than this of about 3 thousand reported in official numbers.

Mulaj claims that because of the procedures required by the state, over tens of thousands of businesses have neither closed nor exercised their business activity, and, he says, have been put on hold.

This number of about 3 thousand businesses that have been closed in two years, a portion of them is due to COVIDD-19, but due to the economic situation. But there's also a large number, over tens of thousands of businesses that haven't even closed, nor have they started the process of closing business activity, and they're actually on hold. So it's a very large number, and it's actually this number of businesses that haven't even shut down business, but they don't do business at this time, they create problems not only to the Tax Administration, but to the climate of doing business in Kosovo, because they can potentially increase informality in Kosovo”, he says.

According to the Ministry of Industry data, entrepreneurship and trade in the past two years have registered a total of 19,863 businesses. Of them, 9802 during 2020 and 10,061 last year.