TIRANA, March 6 – Albania and Serbia have agreed to initiate joint work on unifying certificates accompanying plant and animal-based products, a key barrier preventing modest trade exchanges between the two key Western Balkan countries.
The initiative was confirmed this week during a meeting a Serb delegation headed by agriculture minister Branislav Nedimović paid to Albania to discuss cooperation projects.
According to a statement by Albania’s agriculture ministry, Albanian Minister Niko Peleshi “noted the importance of trade exchanges with agricultural products, considering both markets complementary and with huge potential to increase cooperation.”
A statement by Serbia’s ministry of agriculture, said Serbia is interested in importing pork from Albania and introducing new products in Albania.
Albania’s agriculture ministry says Albania’s fresh vegetable-dominated exports to Serbia grew by 28 percent to about 2 billion lek (€15 million) in 2017.
Lack of unified certificates is a barrier hampering Albania’s agriculture trade exchanges with all regional countries, including Kosovo, despite a free trade agreement in place.
The talks with Serbia also come at a time when all regional countries prepare to adopt measures for an EU-backed regional economic area where goods, services, investments and skilled workers can move without obstacles as a test before the region’s apparent eventual European Union integration that the European Commission says is not going to happen before 2025.
Currently, only Serbia and Montenegro are conducting accession talks with the European Commission, with EU candidates Albania and Macedonia hoping to launch negotiations this year and Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo still potential candidates.
In late November 2017, about a hundred Serbian companies attended the Tirana International Fair, Albania’s traditional year-end business gathering, reconfirming interest in overcoming historical barriers and initiating a new era of cooperation with Albania.
Marko Cadez, the President of the Serbian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, says he sees great opportunities in trade and investment cooperation between the two key Western Balkan countries considering the current quite untapped potentials.
“What matters the most is the growing awareness of the fact that our economies are small, that the capacities of our companies, with the exception of few, are insufficient to independently compete at the international market, and that only together our offer can beat the competition … It is also important that we have recognized in each other desirable partners and that there is growing confidence between our businessmen,” Cadez has told Tirana Times in an interview.
Albania-Serbia trade exchanges are currently stuck at an annual modest level of about €170 million annually and dominated by what experts have previously called medieval era agricultural imports and exports.
Serbian foreign direct investment have in the past three years climbed to a modest stock of 20 million euros while Albanian investment in Serbia is almost non-existent.
Prospects seem optimistic as the two leading EU aspirant Western Balkans countries have already improved access with the launch of the direct Belgrade-Tirana flights by Air Serbia carrier and are on track to be linked through a shorter distance through the extension of the Albania-Kosovo highway to Nis, south-eastern Serbia.
