War also affects Trust, lose 90m euros

Trust officials have confirmed that as a consequence of this crisis in international financial markets, the Trust has suffered a 90m-euro decline.

While, banking expert calls on the Trust to take steps in terms of investments in funds in international markets.

Trust spokesman Jeton Demi tells Kosova Prees that Russia's military aggression in Ukraine has subsequently affected the Trust's share of investments with a contraction of about 4 percent.

However, the bull says there is no room for alarm.

“We have a reduction of the Fund's total value by about 90m euros so far, or about 4 per cent. But since we are after a very high year of growth, in 2021 we rose by almost 11 percent, or about 220m euros, return from investments, we still have room to avoid being alarmed despite the measures taken by the board and the monument being at the level of concern and sensitivity of the new situation. Everything in our life is being touched much more powerful than our retirement tools, so much is costing us much more. The dictionary used recently by the heads of nuclear states, including Russia, which has mentioned the possibility of using nuclear weapons, is a very strong and affecting global security and investment. So the movement, the declines of value at the moment are expected and reasonable for the situation we have”, Demi said.

According to Demi, the Trust for Investment's recent geographical positioning has been with the highest presence in the European market and slightly low in the United States.

However, Demi says they have made an important decision not to be infected with at least the contributors who are now on the verge of retirement.

“The solutions offered by the board and management in this case is that all contributors who have reached the age of 63.5 widow on February 16 of this year will be passed into a conservative investment plan and their means will not be affected by movement in international financial markets, will be part of our investments in Kosovo Treasury bonds, which have historically had a return from investments of about 3 per cent. So this is the newest measure that has been designed and worked for several years by the Trust, to have higher protection of contributors that are closer to retirement and that don't have time to recover the drop or evental fluctuations”, he points out.

University professor Albulen Kastrati tells of Kosova Preis that even the inevitable Trust fund will suffer losses as a result of this war in Ukraine.

Professor Kastrati has asked the Trust Board and management to review the decision on contribution investments in these international markets.

Their performance depends on their performance of index and market performance. Immediately after the Ukraine-Russia crisis, all international stock exchanges in Europe, America, Japan, have been infected and most of them have suffered decline, so in terms of the pension Trust we have a lot of exposures, 90 percent of our contributions, and depending on how these markets reinforce, it will also perform the return of our contributions. Therefore, it is inevitable that some of these contributions can suffer loss... This combination of assets or cracks in different markets should be revised”, Kastrati says.

In recent years the number of contributors to the Trust has steadily increased, with the current fund reaching about 2.3 billion euros.