Development of Exports and Imports of Kosovo with European Union Countries
Development of Exports and Imports of Kosovo with European Union Countries

Summary/Abstract: Kosovo, within the nine years period, has moved from a post conflict country to a country considered to be in transition. Kosovo has passed from its determination for reconstruction of the country to the orientation towards economic development and integration to European structures. But economic development is not yet sufficient in order to address challenges that Kosovo is facing, such as high percent age of unemployment and high deficit of trade exchange. The unemployment rate in Kosovo is the most concerning economic issue. Unemployment norms move from about 30 % (IMF) to 40% (SOK, 2006). High deficit of recurrent accounts also present a great concern for Kosovo economy, which has been evaluated to be 17.3% of gross domestic production (GDP) following receipt of assistance from abroad, and decrease of trade deficit remains one of economic priorities in Kosovo. Current ways of cooperation between countries are based on ignoring existing borders and mutual cooperation among people of the world, based on freedom and equality among entities of market economy. Kosovo supports open economic policies and it achieved to sign some of Free Trade Agreements (FTA) with regional countries of western Balkans. It is expected that Kosovo will endorse other FTA also with other countries in the region and wider since these actions are to be taken in order to support economic development of Kosovo. In the post war period, the main trade partner of Kosovo has been European Union (Germany, Greece, Slovenia, Italy, and Austria), whose participation in general import of Kosovo for 2004 was 26.7%, while this integration in general export of Kosovo in 2004 was 28.7%. The purpose of this study is that I wanted to present importance of trade cooperation of Kosovo with UE countries and offer information of the course of imports and exports of Kosovo with EU countries, as well as to analyze possibilities and advantages that this cooperation offers for economic development of Kosovo.

• Details
• Contents