According to various high-ranking members of the business community, Kosovo has failed considerably when it comes to its economic diplomacy.
No economic attaché has been appointed in any of the diplomatic representatives, thus exempting Kosovo from any chance of lobbying in terms of attracting foreign investments or establishing economic relations with more developed nations. The ministry of foreign affairs in Kosovo has decided to remain silent and not react to these recent remarks.
In addition, the executive director of Kosovo’s American Chamber of Commerce, Arian Zeka, said that he believes that economic diplomacy should be a top priority for the Kosovo government because it would help local investors meet new associates.
According to Zeka, now is the very last chance for the government to actually do something.
“This shouldn’t only remain on the declarative level. I believe that we have all the human capacities and financial ones in order to enable or grow the activation of Kosovo in the field of economic diplomacy. We need to appoint economic attaches in the cities and countries that have the greatest presence or which generate the greatest economic activities at a global scale. Time is running out and this is our last chance to actually do something in this aspect,” – he said.
Head of the board of Kosovo’s Chamber of Doing Business (OAK), Skender Krasniqi, criticized the fact that Kosovo is the only country without economic attaches.
“We need to have economic attaches in all of our embassies and our business offers should be presented by these economic attaches. We are the only country that doesn’t have a single economic attaché in a single country around the world,” – said Krasniqi.
Head of Kosovo’s Economic Chamber Berat Rukiqi told KosovaPress that thorough economic diplomacy would greatly alleviate all other processes for the country’s development like our political relations, visa liberalization, and even Kosovo’s recognition as an independent state.
“This would have a great impact on many other countries which are still skeptical about the different processes in Kosovo like visa liberalization. In addition, if we were to have better economic communication, more trade deals, more foreign investments then they would surely look at Kosovo differently. The same thing goes for those countries which have yet to recognize us,” – said Rukiqi.
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