Berisha: Government counts goods for Kosovo as Albanian exports

Democratic Party leader Sali Berisha at the conference with journalists this Tuesday has denounced what he calls a key and criminal “criminal fraud by the Rama and INSTAT government for a counterfeiting, export data.”

At the daily conference with reporters, Berisha said the government is presenting a false reality on the economy, including in export data goods passing transit from the Durres port to Kosovo, which he says are Kosovo's imports.

No one can believe this unscrupulous fraud. They call exports the transit goods from Durres pass to Kosovo, which are Kosovo's real imports”, Berisha said.

He said the move is aimed at masking Albania's deep export sector crisis, hit hard by what Berisha named “flux of narcoeuros”, according to the former prime minister.

In this shameful race, public fraud constitutes a crime in the country's laws and in the laws of every state. I NSTAT, and not only, have allowed themselves to deceive, lie, to present to Albanians a reality contrary to what is”, he declared.

According to him, the inclusion of Kosovo goods as Albanian exports is a “act monstrous”, which aims to hide the truth about the deep decline of local exports.

“Exports have dropped by 32% year-on-year. This year alone, there is a 7% drop. To hide this drama, Edi Rama and INSTAT are declaring what are actually Kosovo imports” as exports, Berisha stressed.

Berisha stressed that in the past, according to him, only the shoe industry had up to 100,000 employees, but today according to him, this industry and others have collapsed as a result of government policies.

This flow has devalued the euro by 35% since 2014. Export companies have been fatally hit. Many of them can no longer operate with a 30 per cent or 35 per cent profit”, Berisha said.