The Chairman of the Board of the Chamber of Doing Business in Kosovo (CDBK), Skënder Krasniqi, during the unveiling of the annual report, said that 2021 is being concluded as a difficult pandemic year, during which the operation of the private sector was very difficult.
On this occasion, Krasniqi also mentioned the energy crisis, which has made even more difficult the regular operation of businesses, taking into account that the power outages are mostly damaging businesses and workers.
He said that in order to help businesses, it is necessary for the Government to draft a plan for the protection of businesses as soon as possible, so that there are as few power outages as possible in the areas where there are businesses, whereas in case of increase of prices, the CDBK requests that the price difference be subsidized.
“We are concluding 2021 as a difficult pandemic year, during which, the operation of the private sector was very difficult, adding here the recent problems caused by the energy crisis, which are making it very difficult for the business to function, taking into account the irregular power outages, not informing about the power outages, and the lack of state support during this time for the losses that are being caused to businesses during these power outages”, said Krasniqi.
At a press conference, the head of the CDBK said that it is worrying the insufficient reaction of the institutions during the pandemic.
“The insufficient reaction of the institutions during this pandemic time is very worrying for us, because it has been a bad situation in general. We believe that next year, given that this year we had two pairs of elections, the institutions, political parties and the assembly have been busy, therefore, next year we hope that they will be more focused on economic problems and eliminate hundreds of barriers, which our businesses and institutions have”, said Krasniqi.
Krasniqi said that the Law on Commercial Court should be approved as soon as possible in the second reading in the Assembly of Kosovo.
“The work of the Assembly of Kosovo in general has been unsatisfactory and leaves much to be desired, we hope that in 2022 we will have a more active assembly because unfortunately no law has managed to pass in two readings, the Law on Strategic Investments, which expired at the end of 2019, has not yet been addressed in 2020. We hope that the Law on Commercial Court will pass as soon as possible. Also, the Law on Forestry, while other laws such as the Law on Internal Trade, the Law on Agriculture, the Law on Maternity Leave, the Law on Labor, and the Law on Strategic Investments, we hope will have a treatment during the year next”, said Krasniqi.
The head of the CDBK said that the non-functioning of the National Council for Economy and Investment as the highest council at the national level, in which all concerns of businesses should be addressed, is worrying.
Krasniqi mentioned a series of requests made to the CBK, to facilitate the work of businesses, such as the removal of interest rate of 5 to 8 percent for the return of metal money in banknotes, an obligation imposed by the CBK.
Wishing for a more successful year in 2022, Krasniqi asked the Prime Minister, Ministers and the Assembly of Kosovo to be more active in coordinating policies together with business during the next year.
The CDBK Coordinator, Qëndresa Ibrahimi, said that this Chamber during this year as well as during other years, was very active in issues that concern the private sector every day.
