Prishtina 01/11/2016 – Minister of Economic Development, Blerand Stavileci, reported today before the Committee on Economic Development, Infrastructure, Trade and Industry, presenting the achievements in the field of energy, mining and others covered by the MED.

Minister Stavileci informed the members of the Committee on the approval of laws in the energy sector, which according to him will open the way to a secure economic development.

“Laws that regulate the energy sector have been approved, and they will pave the way to economic development and stabilization of the energy sector as a whole,” said Minister Stavileci, adding that activities have already begun to draft secondary legislation which arise from the energy laws package.

Minister Stavileci announced that the Energy Strategy of the Republic of Kosovo 2016-2025 is drafted, adding that the conclusion of 2016 projects such as that of the public campaign for Energy Efficiency and RES as well as the support program – energy audit of public buildings will continue in 2017 as well.

Reporting on the process of the Kosova e Re power plant, Minister Stavileci said that due to the specifics and the high volume of agreements to be reached and negotiations to finalize the first phase of the project “Commercial Closing”, the process of approving agreements continued intensively and the signing of them will be done by the end of this year. Number one of the country’s economy, Minister Stavileci said that they are also working on finalizing the preparation of the second phase of the project “Financial closing”, which is expected to happen in the first quarter of 2017.

Minister Stavileci also informed the participants on achievements in the field of mining, the adoption of the Law on Trepca and the adoption of important documents which regulate mining activities in general.

As for the Information Technology sector, Minister Stavileci informed the Committee members that the document on the National Strategy for Information Technology has already been approved, and it contains a detailed action plan for the period 2016-2018. The minister announced that implementation of the Kosovo Digital Economy Program KODE has begun, which includes the extension of high-speed broadband infrastructure.