Kosovo, Serbia’s Cross to Bear
Serbia Pays 100,000 Dollars Each Day for Kosovo Debt
The total foreign debt of Serbian Kosovo-Metohija province has reached the amount of 1,206 billion dollars and Serbia regularly settles it, allocating more than 100,000 dollars every day for this purpose, state institutions told Tanjug.
Six years ago, during the UNMIK/NATO/KLA rule of the province, the foreign debt of Kosovo-Metohija amounted to 1,7 billion dollars. It was reduced after the write-off of 500 million dollars of the claims of the Paris and London Clubs of Creditors and after Serbian state paid 130 million dollars from the Serbian budget.
Since 2002, Serbia has regularly settled the Kosovo debt, although it has had no revenues for the past eight years from this part of its territory.
According to the official data, by the end of 2006, Serbia settled the principal and interest of Kosovo banks and companies at the total amount of 217,69 million dollars.
The Kosovo-Metohija debt was created between early 1970s and late 1990s and the funds from foreign loans were invested in electric power, railway and metal-working industry projects, mining equipment, automotive industry, telecommunications, water resources management, textile industry and other industrial sectors.
Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Bozidar Djelic said on Sunday that the Serbian delegation in Washington had presented a draft solution for the issue of Kosovo-Metohija’s debt, under which Serbia should either be repaid 215 million dollars, or an equal amount should be deducted from Serbia’s remaining debt to the World Bank.
In other words: those who are profiting from the Serbian province should also foot the bills.
IMF: It’s Nice that They Want Independence, but Who’s Going to Finance Them?
The economic situation in Serbian Kosovo-Metohija province is not conducive to sustainable development. The province cannot finance itself due to low industrial output and the shortage of direct foreign investments, the International Monetary Fund said.
According to the International Monetary Fund, Kosovo economy is characterized by “unclear revenue structure, enormous foreign trade deficit and nearly inexistent industry.” Those who are running the province import over 80 percent of its consumption and the province’s main tax revenue comes from customs and excise collected at administrative points, IMF said.
Kosovo is also unable to secure the servicing of its 1,206 billion dollar foreign debt, said IMF.
How Much Foreign Investment Do You Need to Grow a Cucumber?
In his exceptional four-part article about Serbian province under the NATO/Albanian separatist rule, Swedish reporter Maciej Zaremba who spent six months in Kosovo-Metohija wrote:
“[...] Well into the eighth year of the UN mission, after spending close to twenty-two billion euros on an area the size of Scania (with a population of about 2 million), the black economy is thriving whereas the white one is close to collapse. There is a standard explanation to this misery: As long as Kosovo’s independence from Serbia is not confirmed, nobody dares to invest in the country. Very probable. But what investments do you need to grow cucumber?
“I comb the markets to find some local produce. The soap is from Bulgaria, the shirts from Taiwan. How about the flour? Czech. Drinking water from Hungary. Kosovo’s GNP per capita is lower than Rwanda’s, so it is a surrealistic feeling to have to buy tomatoes from Turkey and salad from Italy — in an agrarian country where the fields lie fallow.
“Why do they? Because, explains Mr. Bajrami at the [provisional] Chamber of Commerce, it pays better to sell chewing gum to the UN staff than to toil in the fields [...]”
It is certainly incomparably easier.
Cartoon by Nikola Otas (Serbia)