Price hikes, rising consumer loans

The average interest rate in consumer loans has reached 6.3 percent in April, until March it was 6.2 percent, the Kosovo Central Bank's monthly report reported.

Economy expert Safet Gerxhaliu, speaking of Radio Kosovo, says every day there is an intensity of the increase in bank incomes, which are mostly being damaged by family economies. Gerjaliu called for liberalisation of the banking market.

“The CEC should be more active in controlling and, above all, in market liberalisation, to have powerful banks. There are commercial banks in Kosovo from where they come from, they are in a position of development, while in Kosovo they are the opposite address. This approach needs to be changed because Kosovo citizens are becoming poorer every day and more”, he said.

The economic downturn and high prices in the market have enabled banks to exploit this provisional situation, economic connoisseur Ardijan Sahiti tells Radio Kosovo.

“People have once borrowed them to their families, yet today it has fallen, because each family now has its own obligations and is inevitably forcing them to take loans to banks, and I am convinced that this is the reason it has affected the rise of loans in banks, namely economic downturn, price hikes and lack of borrowing, has contributed to this explosion of loans from”, he said.

Experts say that last year citizens have spent close to 50m euros on various banking projects, as they have no other way to meet the family's necessary needs, except to borrow money from banks, be they of interest among the highest in Europe, as they continue to be in our country.