The COVID-19 pandemic has forced around 3.000 businesses in Kosovo to shut down in the last 2 years.

The most affected sectors were retail and wholesale companies, followed by hospitality, accommodations and the processing industry.

Construction firms were also identified in the list of businesses going bankrupt.

The head of the borad for Kosovo’s Chamber of Doing Business (CDBK), Skender Krasniqi, has declared that due to a weak economic performance in the country, there is a growing need for relief packages which should be provided by the state budget, which should also include additional funding to help with the current energy crisis.

According to the former minister of trade and industry, Ismet Mulaj, the number of businesses that have gone bankrupt is higher than is being reported by the current administration.

According to Mulaj, the true number is closer to tens of thousands of businesses that have been forced to shut down due to various issues including the pandemic, the energy crisis as well as the poor state of the economy.

According to official data from the Ministry of Industry, Entrepreneurship and Trade, in the past 2 years, a total of 19.863 new businesses have been registered. Of them, 9802 in 2020 and 10.061 in 2021.

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