About 1.6 million residents of Kosovo are believed to have participated in the population census process, according to the Kosovo Statistics Agency (ASK).

In the previous population census process, held in 2011, about 1.74 million inhabitants participated.

This means that the population in Kosovo is believed to have decreased by about eight percent.

The Government of Kosovo has extended the registration process this year – which started on April 5 and was supposed to end on May 17 – for seven days, following requests from several municipalities for an extension of the deadline.

The chief executive officer of ASK, Avni Kastrati, expressed his satisfaction with the registration process and said that all international principles for such processes have been met.

“In general, all communities in Kosovo have been open and have been in favor of the population census. The participation of all communities was massive, except for the Serbian community in the four municipalities in the north, which participated partially,” he said.

A similar boycott took place in the preliminary population census in 2011.

That process was not held in the four municipalities in the north – North Mitrovica, Leposaviq, Zubin Potok and Zveçan – inhabited by a majority of Serbs, while the Serbs in the other municipalities in the south, at the invitation of Belgrade, mostly boycotted the process.

According to the Law on population, household and housing registration, any person can be fined from 30 to 2,000 euros if they refuse to provide the information requested by the registrar.

Fines are even greater, up to 20,000 euros, for businesses.

Kastrati said that now work will be done on data processing, analysis and distribution.

According to him, the preliminary data can be published sometime during the first part of July, while the final data is expected to be published about six months after the registration start date./Received by Radio Free Europe.