Kurti's broken window: What's missing the Investment Strategy?

Today, Kosovo Government's Constance Window was launched. This is a good step, and it aims to guarantee by 10m euros the loans the diaspora can get to local banks for investments.

10 million public aims to freeze 100 million investments, about 30-40 average investments with 3 million annually. That's good.

But what is Kurt's strategy missing for success? His speech was filled with phrases that are a response to the census and a loss of over 220,000 residents for four years.

This was the prime minister's language and discourse: “In 2030 we will have 2 million inhabitants. The “Banes have purchased the diaspora, they can now go back.” Where do you want them to go?

We can't just have access to finance to invest in a country. The main precondition is to have political stability. The key to having investments in Kosovo is that you and your government don't mention the war every possible day, that it takes away the potential inventory for years.

What else is missing strategy? Okay, now if we have the finances (of credit) hypothetically up to 100m euros, where are the projects to invest the diaspora? Each serious government had made a complete strategy for investment. And a strategy without investment projects is not destined to succeed.

The government needs to continue working and develop at least 3x more investment projects (for 300 million). When investment project lists are attached to the window, then it would be easier to invest. This missing link in Kurt's Light strategy may be essential, but not the only action needed.

That's not enough. Access to finance, specific projects, investment bids are only some basic preconditions. We need to create a favorable business climate. Just when the prime minister was washing the window today, an institution was calling on us not to confirm energy that we are importing 1 million per day. So energy security is another prerequisite. However, even legal, property security, permits and rule of law are other important preconditions.

That's not enough either, unfortunately. Investors have different opportunities to invest and only compare it to the possibilities the German and Swiss market offers for our diaspora. Economics there and conditions are so good that diaspora can benefit several times more by investing in their countries. This means that we are competing not only with countries in the region but also with Europe's main investment countries. Everyone, each government, competes and does the best for investors.

And then finally, we have some horizontal troubles that our governments need to address but they're closing their eyes: The Labour Market. Anomalies in this sector are deep. You've got 700,000 people off the job market, and on the other hand you don't have a worker. Then modern industries look for triggers of workers we may not have on our market. Linking skills to the needs of modern economies is still not on the level.

There's a lot of work to bring in investors. That's a good step, but you haven't done the job yet. The government should continue to develop projects and invest in creating adequate conditions for business-making and investment. I identify sectors with comparable priorities and invest conspicuously to create environments and investment conditions in those areas.
And as for excises in finance, I believe our dia orra has demonstrated that he owns his finances. With billions of euros each year it sends them, spends and invests in Kosovo. Over 1 billion remittances, over 500 million purchases of real estate, and perhaps so much their expenses. So finances are not their main mess.

A good business environment, an ecosystem for support of powerful businesses and business infrastructure is at stake. After all, the left-wing relief policies that have been applied have brought no results we're talking about here. These policies have increased public finance pressures and in the private sector that paid the bill.

They have increased import and increased the negative balance of trade in goods that have gone to -5 billion a year or half the economy. For four years we have - 300,000 fewer people and have double or about 2.5 billion more commercial deficits. These are extraordinary, huge losses to human and financial capital that may have come as a consequence of economic bad policies in recent years.

It would have been good for this window or 8 million of public money that the government invests in this window to do business, but we have to spend not only 800 million or 8 billion in the environment and economic conditions but it will take time and years to bring business environment and conditions to the right level.

The window is a small step that so isolated will not succeed. We must do much more to achieve our goals of foreign and diaspora investments.