PDK: Government with wild access to private sector waves at attracting investments

The Democratic Party of Kosovo estimates that Kosovo is rushing into attracting foreign and local investments, and for that one sees the Kurti Government, which it says has a harsh approach to the private sector. And in the face of this situation, PDK says the Law for Strategic Investment is necessary.

PDK Finance Co-ordinator Arben Mustafa in an interview for KosovoPress addresses criticism against the executive even for the approach the executive has, according to him, made to interested ones to gain strategic investor status.

According to him, the government's inconsistent approach contributes to foreign investment in the country.

According to him, the government led by Albin Kurti has failed to keep promises against the private sector. While stressing that it should return communication with this sector, he says unilateral solutions that are formulated within government offices without communication with the private sector cannot be successful.

That Kosovo needs increased capacities for foreign investment, Mustafa says it proves that within them they dominate investments in real estate coming from the diaspora.

“E we have a situation where the private sector does not seem to be one of the top priorities of this government... About 70 percent of the foreign direct investments coming to Kosovo are real estate investments, and we don't have any significant flow of foreign investment in production sectors, which may be more important to generate jobs and economic development... This government has left the country without a strategic investment law, and what is very disturbing is the treatment it has made interested ones to gain strategic investor status”, Mustafa says.

While talking about the importance of adopting the Strategic Investment Law, Mustafa criticises Kurti Government for what he says is harsh access to the private sector.

So it is necessary to move as quickly as possible with a new law... This government since coming to the resort has spoken more about the possibility of a war, conflict rather than Kosovo, as a country with stability and a stable and secure place for investment. The share of the infrastructure is very important for foreign investors, what we are now seeing is a degradation of infrastructure both on the road, on electricity supply and in this way we are not talking about improving business conditions. Moreover, this government's disincentive of the private sector is vicious. If we see what this government has been pursuing over the past year, we find that more has been talking about price control measures, measures that limit activity in the private sector than has been done with creating better conditions for private sector development... Kosovo is rushing into building the country's capacities to attract more foreign and local investments”, Mustafa says.

PDK's finance co-ordinator says the Kurti Government has a strong lack of trust in the private sector, and this has created a huge uncertainty in businesses.

Mustafa for Kosova Preris points out that the government is dealing with topics for dialogue, has forgotten that you had the country's economic development and welfare priorities.

In the PDK, they are not optimistic about the Sovereign Fund either, as they consider the same will have no effect on the country's economy.

According to Mustafa, public enterprise boards, other independent agencies are being populated by party people.

He noted that actually forecasts for economic growth for 2023 are somewhere over 3 percent but, according to him, is less than the average economic growth in the last 10 years. Mustafa says that at this pace of development Kosovo's economy is not expected to have a rapid change in living conditions.

In the end, he also spoke of the Kosovo Energy Corporation, (KEK).

Mustafa says that what is being seen is about major financial abuses, a phenomenon that, in the past by LVV itself, has been called a criminal phenomenon, so according to him, speaks of single-source tenders that have previously qualified as criminal corrupt phenomena. According to him, all tenders were based on single-source access, and there were no open procurement processes and tenders negotiated at the table.