Albania-Kosovo trade exchanges drop as new barriers emerge

Story Highlights

• Albania's trade exchanges with neighbouring Kosovo suffered a setback in 2016 negatively affected by the poor diversification of products traded and ongoing doing business barriers, with the volume of trade remaining at almost the same levels for the past five years despite a costly highway having considerably eased transport and both governments holding joint meetings to boost economic cooperation. The two ethnic Albanian countries have overcome a number of trade barriers over certain products in the past few years and made some procedures easier, but lack of an early tradition in economic cooperation seems to be the main issue preventing the creation of a single market of about 5 million resident consumers