The gas crisis, OEK Calls Government for Urgent Preparation of Support Package

Rafuna in an interview for EO, said that although Kosovo does not have direct transport through this strait, the impact comes indirectly through European markets and international stock exchanges.

We don't, as I say, have ships that circulate through the Strait of Hormuz, but indirectly affect us, because many European companies that are affected by Hormuz Strait, then we import and automatism are affected. And we're looking at the price of oil, as it grew up in international stock markets or in world markets, automatism has increased in us. The rise in oil prices is known to be operational costs for each business, and this also attracts price increases in other products and causes inflation. Officially, 20% of the oil and electricity trade is done through the Strait of Hormuz, while unofficially it amounts to 30%. And it's obviously going to affect us too, but hopefully it's going to end very quickly and there's no problems, we've seen the big states, the great powers that have called for it to be preserved, not shut down, not allowed to close the Hormuz Strait”, he said.

Chairman Rafuna stressed that warnings of increased electricity prices are disturbing and criticised the lack of institutional communication.

“Must prepare a package, we have also asked the Government of the Republic of Kosovo to be ready and to precede. If we have a particularly electricity price increase, then the government must have a package in order to support business, with the support of the citizen of the Republic of Kosovo. And the warning about increasing the price of electricity for us has been very disturbing, and the most disturbing is the non-communication and non-information on the part of the Electrical Energy Regulatory Office what is happening, because it has been a warning through the media that we have been able to see, that we have officially accepted anything that will have an increase of April 1,<1>, he said.

According to him, such growth would be severe shock for both businesses and citizens at a time when the economy is already facing low growth rates and high inflation.

“So it would be a serious blow to business, if it were a very serious blow to citizens of the Republic of Kosovo, especially at the present time. For this reason it is very important that the government has had a package supporting the reduction of inflation, is supporting the businesses and supporting the citizen not to notice the growth of inflation, as is happening to all countries, that it is not what is happening in Kosovo alone, or that Kosovo should have the package, all countries that have prepared the support package”, he said.

Rafuna added that recent data points to low economic growth and escalation of inflation, requiring increased public and private investments and salary indexing.

There's a lot of risk to us because we also have our last record, we as the 2022 Economic Ode have come up with 3.65. It's a very, very small growth, it's a free drop. And you don't dare that to happen, the government has to think of domestic public investments, as in a lot of foreign investments, but also help private investment to become Kosovo, not allow it to go to the countries of the region. So, it should also see how to index wages for as it were, the inflation rate. We now have the latest data from the Kosovo Statistics Agency, where monthly inflation has reached over 6%. And this erodes the citizens of Kosovo and therefore needs an urgent package to be prepared by the government for not allowing inflation to happen to me on the living standard of the citizens of the Republic of Kosovo, or with a view to business”, he said.