People

According to the 2005 Survey of the Statistical Office of Kosova, Kosova’s total population is estimated between 1.9 and 2.2 million comprising the following ethnic proportions:

88 Albanians (between 1,972,000 and 2,200,000)7% Serbs (between 126,000 and 140,000)
1.6% Bosniaks (between 34,200 and 38,000)
1.4% Roma (between 30,600 and 34,000)
1% Turks (between 18,000 and 20,000)
0.5% Gorani(approx. 10,000)
0.5% Others

Culture

Kosovo presents a rich ethno-cultural, material and spiritual heritage treasure-house of different historical periods. With their unique characteristics, features, and qualities each culture has contributed its diverse values to the cultural heritage of Kosovo.

In the heritage of this territory you can see the decades of artistry mastery. Illyrian-Dardanian workmanship and artists renderings, especially arbëror-Albanians provide commentaries on the immobile and mobile culture, the material and spiritual values of the Albanian and other people that lived, and still live in Kosovo.

In the figurative-applicative establishment (composition) of Kosovo, the influence of Helen, Roman, Byzantine, Western and Eastern – Ottoman cultures are present. The influences did not weaken in any way the characteristics and features of the material and spiritual culture of the native Illyrian – Arbëror – Albanian population. This demonstrates that the Albanian culture and arts were developed in close contact with the culture and arts of the others who lived in the Balkan Peninsula, and in the East and West.

Food and accommodation

Kosovo offers a great deal in the way of food and accommodation, including Kosovo oriental food restaurants, as well as international restaurants such as, Thai restaurants, Indian restaurants, Chinese restaurants, Mexican restaurant, etc…

Some of the well known restaurants are: v  PINNOCHIO’s (Prishtina)
v  SIMPHONY (Prishtina)
v  GORENJE – NIKI&TIKI (Prishtina)
v  ULTRA (Prishtina)
v  PISHAT (Prishtina)
v  PËLLUMBI (Prishtina)
v  PJATA (Prishtina)
v  FRESKIA (Prishtina Park)
v  SOFRA (Hajvalia-Prishtina)

Kosovo can offer you a variety of accomodation, from international quality hotels to reasonably priced standard hotels.

Some of the hotels are:
v  HOTEL GRAND (Prishtina)
v  HOTEL PRISHTINA (Prishtina)
v  HOTEL BACI (Prishtina)
v  HOTEL VICTORY (Prishtina)
v  HOTEL AFA (Prishtina)
v  HOTEL JAKOVA (Gjakova)
v  HOTEL PEJTON
v  HOTEL AMSTERDAMv  HOTEL LLUXOR

Transportation Air

As already mentioned Kosovo has one of the best international airports in the region, providing flights to most parts of the world. Prishtina International Airport has been developed considerably in the past years, offers excellent services, and it is one of the best airports in Europe. www.airportpristina.com 

Road

Kosovo has land borders with Serbia, Macedonia and Albania. The road network is maintained regularly allowing travel times from Prishtina of no more than an hour to reach the Macedonian capital, Skopje and three and a half hours to get to Greece’s second city and major port of Thessalonica. It is anticipated that by 2009 a major road network will be constructed improving road connections between Albania and Kosovo (thus improving connections with the Port of Durres) and the rest of Balkans. Three further transport corridors have been proposed for the rest of South East Europe.

Rail

A limited passenger service operates within Kosovo alongside a more developed freight service with a cargo centre located near to Prishtina airport.

Climate

The climate in Kosovo is predominantly continental resulting in warm summers and cold winters with Mediterranean and Alpine influences. Temperature extremes within the country range from +35 C (summer) to -20 C (winter)

Education Institutions

A number of well known international education institutions are present in Kosovo, offering excellent education opportunities, such as the American School of Kosovo, the Turkish American College, and many others.

 Information for Investors

Starting a Business 

Businesses operating in Kosovo must be registered with the Ministry of Trade and Industry, respectively with the Business Registration Agency

Registering a business in Kosovo is both simple and inexpensive. The cost of registration is a 5 Euro for a personal business and 20 Euro for all other forms of business entities.

The following types of business entities can be registered in Kosovo: a single person enterprise, a general partnership, a limited liability company, a limited partnership and a join stock company. All business and trade names are listed with the Registry of Business Organization and Trade Names

A personal business enterprise can be registered in 1 day, while it only takes up to 3 days to register all other types of business enterprises.

Registered businesses are required to register with the Ministry of Finance's Tax Authority to above VAT threshold obtain a VAT number. Obtaining the VAT number takes 8 days. For import-export activities, businesses need to register with the Customs Office to obtain a customs number. This procedure can be completed within a day upon the presentation of the VAT number to the UNMIK Customs Service. Work permits are obtained from the municipality where the business will be located.

Five procedures are required to start a business in Kosovo

·         Deposit the required minimum; (UNMIK/REG/2001/6 on Business Organizations)

·         Procurement of any other documents obligatory under local law, (UNMIK Regulation 200/45, on Self-Government of Municipalities in Kosovo)

·         Payment of registration fees payable to the commercial Registry

·         Registration with the Commercial Registry and

·         Register the company for the specific taxes   

For more information please visit :  Business Registration Agency of KosovoMinistry of Trade and Industry of KosovoTax Administration Office of Kosovo

IPAK will provide free of charge services and assistance to enable you  to make informed investment decisions:

Investment Promotion Agency of Kosovo
Perandori Justinian No.3-5, Qyteza Pejton,
Prishtina/Kosovo
Phone/Fax:+381 38 200 36041
email:info@invest-ks.org
web:  www.invest-ks.org

 Why Kosovo

Quick view of Investment Opportunities in Republic of Kosovo

Low tax regime.

Customs duty on imports 10% - a reduced rate of 0% applies to imports of capital goods and agricultural production inputs

·         VAT rate is 15%, 0% taxes on exports

·         Personal income tax rates vary from 0-20%

·         0% VAT and customs duty on exports

·         Corporate income tax 20%

Stimulating business environment

·         Free access to the market of the European Union and the markets of neighbouring countries;

·         Simple and quick business registration procedure Modern and EU compatible legal framework;

·         The Euro is the official currency, eliminating Euro zone currency risk

Law on foreign investments 

National treatment investment regime guarantees unrestricted use of income. Prohibition of favouritism and discrimination. Protection against expropriation. 99-year land lease (UN guarantee)

Population

Young and motivated population - 2 million population, 70% under the age of 35. Official languages: Albanian and Serbian. Other European languages mainly English, Italian, German, Swedish, French and Turkish.

Flexible labour market and competitive labour force

Highly flexible labour force, Average monthly wage 218 Euro, Low income tax - 5%. Mandatory contributions for individual pension saving accounts 10%   

Abundant resources

Abundant natural resources: lignite, lead, zinc, ferronickel and fertile agricultural land

Sound banking system

CBAK Authority regulates banking and insurance sectors. All banks are private: 6 banks, including Raiffeisen Bank,  8 insurance companies

New customs code

Bonded Warehousing - store imported goods under customs control, without paying any duties until sale. Inward Processing Relief - import, process and re-export, no duty. Other facilitations - processing under customs control, transit, temporary admission, etc.

Energy and mining

Lignite reserves about 14 billion tonnes. New power plant will add 1,000MW capacity, GDP increase of 17%. Demand for investments in new coalmines. Huge deposits of lead and zinc (Trepça mines). Gold and silver, ferronickel and magnesium.

Agriculture sector

Suitable and fertile land (fruits and vegetables). Area of 1.1 million hectares. Private family small and fast growing farms. Bio products 0% tariff rates for agro inputs and capital goods. A long winemaking tradition. Opportunities in reviving livestock production, meat and dairy production

Winter tourism

One existing ski resort - soon to be privatised. Virgin skiing resort - potential

Privatisation

Operated by Kosovo Trust Agency. Nearly 500 SOEs privatised in past 28 rounds, 200 SOE still to be privatized. Mostly agricultural companies, trade metal processing, textile Possibility of concessions or leases

Industrial Park

24 Hectares of Land, 8km from Prishtina Railway station, 21km from Prishtina. Adjacent to Prishtina/Skopje Highway. Easy access to power, water, telecommunications, etc      

Agriculture and food processing

In addition to its mining resources Kosovo is well endowed with agricultural land. Out of the total surface of 1.1 million ha app. 577.000 ha or 53 % is cultivable land.

The use of the cultivable land is distributed upon the agricultural sub sectors as follows:  51% grains (corn, wheat, barley), 45% pastures and meadows, 3% vineyards and groves, and the rest 1 %.  

With some 60% of the population living in rural areas and mostly working in agriculture Kosovo has a long agricultural tradition. Currently this sector contributes to 30% of the Gross Domestic Product of Kosovo and is the main source of income for the majority of population in Kosovo.  

The arable land is considered to be of good quality, which - combined with the temperate climate that prevails throughout the country - provide very good conditions for agricultural production. Although currently some 70% of the requirements of the Kosovo population for agriculture products are met by imports, the agricultural sector has the potential to not only substitute the imports and assure adequate food supply for the population, but also export some of the products.  

Due to the average size of individual farms (the average area belonging to the agricultural family is estimated around 2.2 – 2.4ha) the arable land in Kosovo is particularly suitable for the high value crops, such as fruits and vegetable. Apart from that the socially owned land, which make up app. 10% of the total arable land surface, can be used for the cultivation of the low value crops due the larger size. The socially owned land can be acquired through the ongoing privatisation process with relatively low financial means.

In order to improve the competitiveness of the sector against the foreign products and consequently stimulate the local production, the government in Kosovo has recently introduced incentives for local producers. The 0% tariff rate for most agricultural inputs and capital goods, together with VAT exemption for a wide range of agricultural inputs will help to improve the comptetitive situation vis-a-vis the foreign competition. The promotion of the product processing businesses, support for the exports, the transfer of know-how and the simple access to the favourable financial means are some further steps that together with the sufficient investor interest can further stimulate this segment of Kosovo's economy and lead to the creation of a large export business

Food Processing 

The supplemental agro-products processing industries also represent excellent investment opportunities.

Currently the food processing industry annually supplies more than 21,000 tons of sugar and edible oil, considerable quantities of canned vegetables, margarine and milk products, as well as other related products. However, the requirements of the local market are much higher, thus explaining the large amounts of Kosovo’s trade deficit in this field.

The agro-processing in Kosovo has traditionally been predominated by socially owned enterprises, which used to obtain a substantial part of the raw materials from thousands of private farmers. However, the lack of financial means needed for the revitalisation and modernisation of these SOE and the insufficient management efforts to reorganize the production and distribution, have resulted in the uncompetitiveness with the foreign products, and consequently the loss of marketshare. Currently the production capacities of many of the agro-processing SOEs are not fully utilised.

By addressing the financial issues, assuring new markets and introducing new and efficient management techniques the agro-processing industry in Kosovo could once again achieve high production rates, thus being able to compete with foreign products even in foreign markets. The immediate encouragement to the private farming would also be granted, thus enabling a significant support to the development of the pure agriculture in general, and also organic production.

There are numerous agro-industries in Kosovo with high market potential offering potential investors immediate access to suppliers of raw materials,  technical capability, and promising market prospects, not just in Kosovo, but also to the adjacent Balkan and Central Europen markets, totalling app. 100 mio. consumers. The cheap workforce and the custom and tax incentives offered for the agricultural inputs and capital goods, complement the attractive opportunities that this business field in Kosovo offers.

Livestock 

At present, Kosovo is experiencing a livestock recovery process. Livestock farming has been making great strides in recent years - both in number of head and in yields.

In particular there are two main factors in favour of the livestock investments in Kosovo. First, the country offers very good natural and climate preconditions for different arts of live stock farming. Second, the market demand for the livestock farming products is currently much higher that the domestic production. The planed revitalisation of the food processing industry will furthermore create even higher opportunities for the livestock farming in the future.

The recently introduced, supportive government policies and incentives are aiming to promote the business opportunities in this field and should enable Kosovo to rely increasingly on domestic meat and dairy production in the near future or even enable Kosovo to export high quality bio products. 

Vineyards

Grape-growing and wine production has a long tradition in Kosovo. While local small-scale wineproduction was developed rampantly in the two last centuries, the wine industry in Kosovo was made large-scale in 1970s with the founding of the first larger SOEs . During its “glory days” the wine industry consisted of 9000ha vineyard area, divided in private and public ownership and spread mainly in the Kosovo and Dukagjini region. The four state-owned wine production facilities, located in the west and south of the Kosovo, were not so much as “wineries” as they were “wine factories”. Only the Rahovec facility alone that held app. 36% of total vineyard area, had the capacity of around 50 million litres annually. The major share of the wine production was intended for exports. In its peak in 1989 the exports of Rahovec facility amounted 40 million litres and were mainly distributed in the German market.The private sector has a processing capacity of about 20-30 thousand litres.

The viniculture still represents one of the most important sectors of the Kosovar agriculture, with the highest potential to attract foreign investments. The continental climate and the height of 300-400 meters above the sea level are very well-suited to vineyards and the development of wine grapes. There are more than 200 sunny days yearly to help ripen the grapes, on par with some well known wine production regions. The grapes of the Kosovo region are furthermore characterised by a high sugar contents, thus enabling the production to be undertaken without further additives. All these advantages create very good preconditions for the qualitative wine production in Kosovo.

Currently Kosovo wine industry consists of some 5000 ha of land, of which only 20% are in social ownership. The major number of wine producing SOE has already been privatised, while some big players will be prepared for privatisation in the near future.  

In order to stimulate and support the grape-growing and wine production, the government of Kosovo has passed a Wine Law that governs wine production at a high standard and is perhaps one of the finest in the world for such a small growing region like Kosovo.   The creation of the wine institute in Rahovec that will lead the charge towards quality and technology-based winemaking techniques is also an important step to the revitalisation and the modernisation of the wine industry in the future. 

Kosovo has an enviable endowment of natural resources. At 14.700 million tonnes, Kosovo possesses the world’s fifth-largest proven reserves of lignite. This mineral is of outstanding importance for the country, representing in a long term one of the most crucial factors for the power generation.

Furthermore, at an exploitation cost of 1.1 Euro/GJ of energy, Kosovo’s coal is definitely the most economical in the region.

The current lignite winning capacities in Kosovo amount 15 millions tonnes annually. The lignite exploitation life is therefore estimated at 650 years. Expressed in Euro the value of lignite reserves reaches app. €90 billion.

The lignite is distributed across Kosovo, Dukagjin and Drenica Basin, although mining has so far been restricted to the KosovoBasin. Due to the high exploitation of the two existing mines located in the vicinity of the Kosovo power plants, the government is planning to open new mines that will provide adequate coal supply for the existing and possible new power plants.

Apart from lignite the base-metal mining has been a mainstay of Kosovo economy since the pre Roman times. Modern mining in this field began in the 1930s, when Trepça Complex was revamped by the British Company “Selection Trust”. Currently Trepça Complex is in social ownership and consists of eight mines, three mining flotation systems and two units of lead and the zinc metallurgy.

Along the Trepça Mineral Belt zinc, lead, silver, gold, cadmium and bismuth are exploited. The Trepça complex used to employ in the 1989 about 29,000 workers and had the second highest lead and zinc exploitation ratio in Europe.

 Energy and Mining
The lead and zinc reserves of the Kosovo are estimated to app. 48 millions, those of nickel app.16 millions tonnes. Chrome reserves amount app.89 millions tonnes and bauxite reserves app.13,2 million tonnes.
Contact Ministry of Energy and Mining www.ks-gov.net/mem 

Privatisation process in Kosovo

The privatisation programme is run by the Kosovo Trust Agency (KTA), established in June 2002. The KTA is responsible for executing UNMIK's responsibility to administer Publicly and so-called Socially Owned Enterprises (SOEs) in Kosovo (which is a kind of co-operatives).

The KTA has the mandate to grant concessions or leases, establish corporate subsidiaries, initiate bankruptcy proceedings and privatise SOEs.
There are nearly 500 SOEs in Kosovo. Some of them are large industrial complexes, such as the Trepca and Ferronickel conglomerates, which together employed more than 12,000 people. Most SOEs are in the agricultural and trade sectors, but they can also be found in other business sectors.

SOEs are privatised through spin-offs and voluntary liquidation. This is a very attractive method, under which only minor liabilities are transferred to the buyer.

The 'Spin-Off' is a two-step procedure whereby the assets of the Socially Owned Enterprise are transferred to a joint stock company, which initially will be 100% owned by the SOE. Thus, a new company is created for privatisation purposes. Most spin-offs are expected in the best performing sectors; these are agro processing, which includes wineries and food processing entities, the construction materials sector, mining, and metal processing.

Liquidations allow an inexpensive exit from the market for those enterprises which clearly have no survival prospects. Proceedings would be out of court following the procedures outlined in the Regulation on Business Organisations (UNMIK Reg. 2001/6).

In both cases, privatisation offers excellent opportunities to both domestic and foreign investors to obtain access to valuable natural resources, production facilities with infrastructure, land, equipment and entire enterprises with trained and skilled employees

Banking and financial services

The role of the Central Banking Authority of Kosovo (CBAK) is to regulate the financial sector and protect its stability as well as to foster its development.

Commercial banks provide a full range of banking services including loans, guarantees, current accounts,
 savings accounts, term deposits, domestic and international transfers, and safekeeping services. All of
Kosovo’s banks are now private with some being foreign-owned. There are six registered banks, eight
insurance companies, five pensions’ funds, twenty one Other Financial intermediaries and fifteen
Financial Auxiliaries (mainly money transfer agencies).

For more information regarding Banking Sector and Banks please visit:

http://www.cbak-kos.org (Central Banking Authority of Kosovo)
http://www.kasabank.com/ (KASA Banka)
http://www.brk-bank.com (Banka e Re e Kosoves)
http://www.bekonomike.com/ (Banka Ekonomike)
http://www.bpbbank.com/ (Banka për Biznes)
http://www.raiffeisen-kosovo.com (Raiffeisen Bank)
http://www.procreditbank-kos.com (Procredit Bank in Kosovo) 
 
MICRO FINANCE INSTITUTIONS

For a complete list of Micro Finance Institutions please follow
the link:http://www.cbak-kos.org/english/Micro%20Finance%20Institutions.htm

INSURANCE COMPANIES & PENSION FUNDS

For a complete list of Insurance Companies and Pension Funds please follow
 the link: http://www.cbak-kos.org/english/Insurance%20Companies.htm

Non Banks Financial Institutions

For a complete list of Non Banks – Financial Institutions please follow the link:
http://www.cbak-kos.org/english/non_banks.htm

MONEY TRANSFER AGENCIES

For a complete list of Money Transfer Agencies please follow the link:
http://www.cbak-kos.org/english/money_agencies.htm

MONEY EXCHANGE BUREAU

For a complete list of Money Exchange Bureau please follow the link:
http://www.cbak-kos.org/english/exchange_bureaus.htm

 Macroeconomic indicators

In 2006, Kosovo economy recovered from previous year stagnation recording an estimated real GDP growth of 3.0%.

Source: CBAK, Annual Report 2006

The seventh edition of the fair ITTF 2010 brought numerous innovations,
more..
List of Exhibitors

Impressive results in EXPOKOS 2011,
more...
List of exhibitors
Expokos Video