The Ministry of Trade and Industry Hykmete Bajrami, took part at the Forum “Fol Hapur” organized by Fol Movement, where subjects of the discussion were the MTI’s priorities and policies for this year, as well as the realization of two last year’s plan.
By presenting the MTI achievements, Miniser Bajrami said that during this period we were focused on supporting small and medium-size enterprises, in promoting investment environment in Kosovo and its improvement, as well as consumer protection and market regulation area, as authority in charge for trade and industrial policies in general.
"The economic development agenda was in focus of Prime Minister Mustafa, who gave his unreserved support to this area since beginning of my mandate," said Minister Bajrami, adding that they were dealing very seriously with the Kosovo’s investment climate and business environment in general, for what I am quite sure that this is being reached to some extent.
Minister Bajrami said that up today the Ministry has approved 10 laws and 32 bylaws, stating that there are 22 administrative instructions, 9 regulations and one new law that didn’t exist before, which is the law on Strategic Investment.
MTI’s Minister said that since the beginning of her mandate, a study on foreign investment attraction has been made in order to see what countries of the region provides to investors in comparison to Kosovo.
Even before this mandate we had an experience in term of the various institutional role, when many well-known companies were interested to invest in Kosovo. We have worked in many areas such as on legislation approximation, we have adopted 10 laws, one of which is worthy to mention, the law on strategic investments dedicated to attract foreign direct investment. We also have noted that from the big companies we can not ask to compete. Last week a great interest was shown from Canadian companies which are interested to invest a half billion euros, and which are seeking to gain the strategic investor status, “said the minister.
Minister Bajrami also pointed out that KIESA has worked hard, and added that “many roundtable are organized with business community to see where they face obstacles. Only last year we have organized 17 trade fairs. Around 178 companies have attended these fairs where they exposed 1200 of their products”.
Minister Hykmete Bajrami stated that several economic Forums already has been organized, as the Economic Forum in London, a very successful one, stating that kind of such forum will be organized in Prishtina as well, where interested companies will came and will introduce their concreate projects.
In regard to Economic Zones, Minister Bajrami said that the Mitrovica has a license to develop the Economic Zone, while Gjakovo municipality still don’t have such a license, since as minister made known, the license for establishment of an economic zone should be initiated by the municipality, and not from the Ministry. In this regard, Minister Bajrami told that the municipalities must met 7 criteria, and the most important is the property issue.
While, in regard to Trepca, Minister Bajrami opinion was that much better it would be if there will be also included private investment, and about Brezovica Project, she said that they are working on a new scenario.