There is no deal for plates, but there is market embattling with Serbia goods

Kosovo Customs data provided by Periscope They show that in April of this year, Kosovo has imported goods from Serbia worth 22.644,403.60 euros.

About 85m euros have reached the rate of introducing goods from Serbia to the small Kosovo market for only the first four months of this year.

Albania's products are following Serbia, but never affecting its figure, as in April from there a commodity of 18.2m euros was introduced. From the other neighbouring state of Kosovo, Macedonia and V, goods were imported last month worth 14. 3 million euros. From Montenegro 1,035,196,62 euros.

Although last month the import in Serbia has been over 4m euros more than Albania, VAT taxes paid in Customs from Albania and Serbia have been the same. This is about the fact that many goods related to raw materials have been introduced from Serbia, while products of this category are free of customs tax.

Kosovo has managed to sell in Serbia last month only 4.7m euros, until in Albania it has sold 8m euros of goods.

After a sharp decline in 2019, when Kosovo implemented reciprocity with Serbia that almost brought the deadlock of imports into the January-June 2021 period, the northern neighbour also found the ground under Albin Kurti's government, and moved back to the first place from the CEFTA region, which includes Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Northern Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

According to Kosovo Customs data, import in Serbia from 1 January to 31 December 2021 has been 243m and 466 thousand euros. Albania has been slightly lower in numbers, worth 238m and 600 thousand euros. Goods purchases from northern Macedonia 176m and 448m euros.

In other years, Serbia similarly occupied the Kosovo market with its goods. It exported 285 million and 300 thousand euros in 2014, 368 million and 200 thousand in 2015, 382 million and 100 thousand in 2016, and 387 million in that 2017.

“Serbia sent and Kosovo received products worth nothing less than 449m euros and 900 thousand euros mostly from 2008.

The economic conquest Serbia was making to the Kosovo market for a decade (2008-18), the momentum halted the 10% tax first, and then 100% that the Kosovo Government, then led by Ramush Haradinaj, put on products of Serbian and Bosnian origin at the marathon of 2018. The total amount of its remittances from 449m to 900 thousand euros as it was in 2018 fell to only 5 million and 578 thousand euros in that 2019.

The tax lasted nearly a year and a half until 31 March 2020. On that date, he removed and replaced the new prime minister, Albin Kurti, with reciprocity. This presented him with much trouble during his first term. On the one hand, reciprocity was being accepted by Serbia, which conditioned the resumption of dialogue with Kosovo with the removal of this move. Foreign diplomatic pressure made it its own. The LDK, which was in a coalition with the VV, broke the deal and created a new government with the AAK and NISMA.

Among the first actions the new ruler took at the time, Avdullah Hoti, was the removal of reciprocity with Serbia in June 2020. The northern neighbour, during 2020, sent products worth 190,98,000 euros. /Periscopi/