Serbia is losing the market of Kosovo, imports of goods drop significantly

2024-07-04 10:18:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Serbia is losing the market of Kosovo, imports of goods drop significantly

Illustrative photo, taken from Google

Serbia is no longer among the main countries that dominate in terms of importing goods to Kosovo.

In the last two years, imports from Serbia have dropped by 70 percent. Meanwhile, there is an increase in imports from Albania by about 25 percent.

In the last month, it has been a year since Kosovo imposed the security measure to ban Serbian goods.

From then until now, it can be observed that Serbia has started to lose the Kosovo market.

Based on the Customs data, it appears that there is a significant decrease in goods imported from Serbia.

In the January-May period, goods worth 42.3 million euros were imported. While in the same period last year, 74.99 million euros were imported.

Based on these data, it appears that during the 5-month period, 115 thousand 234 tons of goods were imported from Serbia.

While in the same period last year, 183,755 tons of "Made in Serbia" goods were imported.

According to the data, the Serbian state is no longer among the five countries that dominate in terms of the import of goods. Turkey leads as the country with the largest import, followed by Germany, China, Greece and Albania.

The Director of Customs in Kosovo, Agron Llugaliu, in a statement to the media a few days ago, said that after the implementation of security measures by the Government, there is a decrease in imports from Serbia by about 70 percent, while there is an increase in imports from Albania for about 25 percent compared to the same period last year.

"The government has decided a measure which is based on the security context we have in the course of the events of June last year, which then continued with escalation, even with the attack that happened in Banjska. Considering that we have capacities that enable controls based on risk analysis, we are committed to doing the board's procedure as far as we have control capacities.

In this case we control as much as we can in our capacity, and this has resulted in a reduction of about 70 percent of imports in general. However, it is important that the measure has been efficient, showing that we have had no infiltration or attempted smuggling of weapons and other equipment. This year we have a significant increase in imports with Albania. From 122 million euros last year, in four months, it is 130 million, which is somewhere close to a 25 percent increase compared to the same period last year.

The security measure to stop Serbian goods was taken on June 14, 2023 by the Government of Kosovo, the day when three Kosovo police officers were kidnapped by Serbian forces inside the territory of Kosovo. Later, the Government decided to ease the security measure for raw material goods and semi-finished products.

A year after this decision, they reacted to the Government of Serbia, saying that they were harmed in the amount of 210 million euros.

The Office for Kosovo in the Government of Serbia has complained that Kosovo has caused damage of around 210 million euros, with the decision a year ago to establish a security measure for Serbian products entering Kosovo.

The director of this Office, Petar Petkovic, has stated that with this decision, Prime Minister Albin Kurti has drastically violated the rights of Serbs in addition to the Brussels agreements.

"Kurti directly violates both CEFTA and the Brussels Agreement and in this sense, when you look at the most direct damage caused by this decision, it is now about 210 million euros, but the real damage is actually much, much greater. First, the most threatened are the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija, because many shops that depended directly on Serbian goods, small shops, have been closed."

Regarding the one-year ban on Serbian products, the EU spokesperson, Peter Stano, asked both sides - Kosovo and Serbia - not to take unilateral decisions.

"It is the position of the European Union that Kosovo and Serbia in everything they do must adhere to the agreements concluded in the Dialogue (Belgrade-Pristina) and prevent or refrain from movements that are not coordinated and unilateral".

As a result of the impact of this measure, Kosovo has changed its partners for importing goods.

Serbia, which was one of the countries from which the most goods were imported from the CEFTA countries, now ranks third with only 3.4 percent, according to KAS data on foreign trade published at the end of May. Before Serbia is Albania with 5.5 percent and North Macedonia with 5.3. According to KAS, imports from CEFTA countries have reached the value of 926 million or 15.7% of total imports, with a decrease of 7.4%, compared to the same period of 2023./Monitor