For five months exiles sent over 445m euros to Kosovo

The deepening global economic crisis following Russian aggression in Ukraine has not stopped exiles from spending large sums of income in Kosovo.
The capital's departments Wednesday were packed with countrymen from the diaspora.

Some of them said they would spend even more than last year, though they admit the prices are higher.

I've taken the female with me from Sweden this year, and the mother has it in the sea. A little more expensive, a little bit more expensive, but not too much. For us it's a little cheaper, compared with our salaries is free for us”, says Stay Gashi, Teve1 reports.

“Wallahi, right me said the same. Every year I come the same. Too bad the salaries are not too big, compared to Slovenia we are saying there are many cheaper ones there that are going to be”, Lirigzon Foniqi says.

And someone else said it would save more this year.

And a little bit less, something less than the reason is the crisis. It takes more than a lot of major crisis to see for crying, as well as the high price of catastrophe”, says another citizen.

The shipments from the diaspora, or as otherwise known as remittances, according to the Kosovo Central Bank until May of this year have exceeded the amount of 400m euros.

The remits value by May of this year was 445.4m euros. This amount is almost the same as their value in the same period last year, when they had reached the value of 446.8m euros. They mostly come from countries such as Germany, Switzerland, the US, Austria, etc.”, the Kosovo Central Bank spokesman stressed.

The central banking authority says most of the revenues from the diaspora are designated for consumption.

But economics professor Mustaf Kadriaj estimates that the government must build such policies for remittances to be dedicated to investments.

I encourage governments and this government to simply make favourable policies on the part of tourism to have more of a reason for exiles to come to Kosovo and to spend the best of their vacations, and also if there is room and room for possible investments that these means of remittances can turn into investments and in the possibilities of employment and economic development”, economics professor Mustafe Kadriaj suggested.

Over 500 thousand Kosovars are estimated to live abroad.