Prime Minister Edi Rama went on with a series of meetings with successful Kosovo entrepreneurs at the business premises of the leading regional company Devolli Group in Gjakova, one of Kosovo’s leading exporters.

“Thank you very much! I am deeply moved by his hospitality and I feel honoured by your presence here. Based on the calculations we have made, here have been sitting annual turnover of around 5  billion euros therefore, I would like to express the assurances of my highest consideration and respect for your incredible contribution to the economy of Kosovo, as well as for the contribution – some of you – provide to the Albanian economy and given that as recently I have been given the privilege to contact with some of you and I have noticed that, on the one hand, there is a strong readiness to invest more in Albania, on the other hand, there is a lack of information regarding the fiscal system or related to the promotion of investments in tourism, I thought it would be appropriate to take advantage of this opportunity to have a word with you.

Thank you very much and very briefly I would like to tell you all that Albania is going through a new phase of development and is experiencing a moment when it is really worth investing specifically in tourism, as well as in food production lines in particular. Earlier today we had the chance to visit and see firsthand the business premises of one of the excellent companies in Kosovo, as well as a leading company in the region, namely M&Sillosi, and then another excellent exporting company here that now has its say in various important ranking of international companies, even in the United States of America, and we very much hope that such a factory will be built in Albania to best take advantage of the port logistics there.

On the other hand, I would also like to tell you that we are very interested in a greater presence of Kosovo entrepreneurship in Albania. You have fantastic examples of excellence here and it would be a great privilege for Albania to have you there.

Albania has a very favourable tax system in place, especially when it comes to employees. In the next few weeks, we plan to scrap the income tax on monthly salaries up to 500,000 lek and such a move would really make your operations easier.

I have to note a couple of things that may be important for you to hear, but first, we are in an advanced stage to scrap all customs duties on all goods imported from Kosovo to Albania.

We have made such a decision under the Open Balkans and it would certainly be pointless if such customs tariffs are not removed in the exchanges with Kosovo. In other words, no customs tariffs will be applied on all goods imported from Kosovo.

Second, we plan to grant the Authorized Economic Operator status. In this very concrete case, you talked about the companies ran by the two brothers, who  are here, but there are other companies, which have a very large flow of traffic at the border and use intensively the port of Durres and we want to sign an agreement with the Kosovo government,  similar to the ones we have signed under the Open Balkans initiative, providing for a green lane for Authorized Economic Operators that will no longer be forced to stop at the border crossing points.

You talked about the port. We have brought the new Durres port project that has been designed to serve as a common regional seaport port of utmost importance.

And of course, it is our ambition for this port to serve everyone in the Balkans. It is regrettable that the Open Balkans initiative is being described as an instrument for Serbia to control the market, but if one is to look into Serbia’s trade volume they would find that it has the largest increase here, despite all the obstacles, the problems and the relations.

Practically the biggest trade volume is here and the biggest increase is here, so it is not a question of the Open Balkans doing anything else, but it will create a much bigger space for everyone. It will greatly expand the economic breathing space for everyone and everyone will get the share they are entitled to.