Prishtina, 17.05.2016 – Deputy Minister of Economic Development, Besa Zogaj-Gashi, after an invitation of the Balkans Assistance Office in Sofia, participated in the International Conference titled “Political support for start-ups of young entrepreneurs”, organized by the Balkans Assistance Office for ten countries of the region, including Kosovo.

The conference was also attended by representatives of the Government of Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro, and representatives of Chambers of Commerce, and Business Associations.

Deputy Minister Zogaj-Gashi spoke about the economy of Kosovo, incentive policies of the Republic of Kosovo, adopting policies conducive of establishing an appropriate ecosystem to strengthen SMEs.

“Government of Kosovo has developed and approved important strategic documents, such as: National Strategy for Economic Development 2016-2021; Program of Economic Reforms; SAA Implementation Plan 2016-2020, and is currently drafting the SME Strategy 2017-2020, where development and strengthening of SMEs holds a primary place”, she added.

Zogaj-Gashi also added that the Government is working intensively to ensure stable electricity supply, which for years was listed as one of the barriers of doing business, improving the physical infrastructure (road and rail), improving other quality infrastructure (economic zones and business parks), implementing a significant number of reforms, covering a wide range of activities and measures with good results, such as: improving legislation, permits, licenses; improving and eliminating administrative barriers and commercial liberalization for imports of machinery and production lines and ICT equipment, facilitating access to finance for SMEs through the establishment of the Kosovo Credit Guarantee Fund, strengthening the public-private, increasing the efficiency of administration, e-government, drafting administrative instruction for tax breaks for 1 to 6 years depending on the amount of business investments and the number of workers, etc.

Deputy Minister also spoke about the ICT sector and energy efficiency projects which are being implemented in these two sectors.

Otherwise, in her visit to Bulgaria, Deputy Minister and the representatives of the Kosovo Chamber of Commerce, Afrim Tejeci, visited the Embassy of the Republic of Kosovo in the Republic of Bulgaria, where they were welcomed by Ambassador Shpend Kallaba and First Secretary Bubulina Krasniqi.