Trade block, Albania imports 2.4% of total food imports from Kosovo, half is beer

According to INSTAT official data from total food imports, 2.4 per cent from Kosovo markets.

In 2021 Albania imported 130 billion dollars of total food and drink, while imports from this group from Kosovo were $3 billion, or 2.4 percent.

Half of Kosovo's food imports were in the form of drinks, mainly beer, which is not sanctioned by the Kosovo government's decision.

The rest is made up of flour, dairy, and other foods of common value, some $1 billion by 2021. The share of food in sanctions accounts for less than 1% of total food import.

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti said at the Government meeting yesterday that the purpose of this decision is to ensure the supply of citizens with products such as wheat, corn, flour, food oil, etc.

Exporting goods “Made to Kosova” in February, according to Kosovo Statistics Agency data, was worth 65.2m euros, while importing the value of 414.7m euros.

In 2021, Albania imported 130 billion dollars ($1.06 billion) of food from abroad to meet the needs of domestic consumption.

While exporting in the same year only 44 billion dollars (361m euros), according to INSTAT data. Imports were three times higher than, exports making our country a net importer of food products, with total dependence on foreign markets.

This high dependence occurs even though the agricultural sector is the largest in our country's economy at around 20.8 % of the State Value Bruto (2020), the highest level in Europe, according to a comparison made by Eurostat. In Ukraine, which is in the biggest global exporters with cereals and basket food, agriculture accounts for only 9 percent of the economy.

Albania has an agricultural sector nearly three times the regional average, but on the other hand, has higher dependence on imports from other countries in the region. Although there is adequate climate and favourable water resources for agricultural cultures, Albanian products are not competitive, as the government provides the lowest level of subsidies for the sector compared to the region and Europe, and there is a lack of the economy of the scale from surface fragmentation.

For this reason, the last two decades, farmers abandoned the cultivation of wheat and corn, as the cost of production was higher than the retail price of imported products in minority markets. Of the 130 billion dollars of total food imports in 2021, more than 12 billion dollars (10%) were wheat imports.

Referring to INSTAT data on imports over the years, the weight of food imports to total imports is 11.4%.