Useful contacts

There are several institutions and organisations who you can call upon to access accurate and useful information about doing business in Kosovo. We have divided them into local business organisations, governmental institutions and donor funded programmes.

Local Business Organisations

The Kosovo Chamber of Commerce is a well respected organisation operating at central level in Kosovo with sub-branches in each of the regions. Their mission is to represent the business community in Kosovo to the government, to support and protect legal interests and to encourage the development of trade and industry. They offer a variety of services including assistance with international relations, information networks, consultancy, executive services, training as well as establishing relations with international institutions and other Chambers of Commerce in other countries.

Riinvest are an Institute for Development Research. Their main focus is to look at the economy of Kosovo and study economic developments and analyse current policies. They have produced several research reports and organise many economic forums for Kosovo throughout the year.

EXIMKOS Pristina specialises on establishing foreign trade relations for Kosovo based enterprises. The EXIMKOS employees have been vocationally trained to do their job in the field of foreign trade, consulting, proposing engineering solutions, marketing and representing foreign firms.

The Cambridge School provides linguistic consulting and training services to foreign clients as well as hot-desking and short-term office space rental with all communication facilities.

Government/Institutional Bodies

The Transitional Department of Trade and Industry (Department of Trade and Industry) is the government department best placed to be able to provide information on Commercial Laws, the Commercialisation and Privatisation programmes, Trade and Investment and Private Sector Development.

The Transitional Department of Finance and Economy (Central Fiscal Authority) comprises departments acting as a treasury, budget office, tax administration, customs service and other fiscal bodies. This department is best placed to provide information on taxation issues and accounting policy.

The Banking and Payments Authority of Kosovo seeks to foster the development of a modern and efficient banking and payments system, as well as to provide financial services to public bodies. Its functions are similar to those of a central bank. Its most significant responsibility is for the licensing of banks and other financial institutions. It also acts as UNMIK's bank, accepting deposits from UNMIK departments and making payments per instructions from the Central Fiscal Authority. BPK will also be responsible for managing the introduction of the EURO in January 2002.

Donor Funded Programmes

The European Agency for Reconstruction is supporting a Private Sector Development Programme to establish Regional Enterprise Agencies. These agencies will operate in each of the five regions of Kosovo and provide business advice, information and training to local businesses. They will also provide a quality service to improve business management and skills, assist in the growth of business in the region and to improve business plans and projects. They will be useful points of contact to help in the assessment of the business climate in the regions.

The Euro Info Correspondence Centre (EICC), belongs to a network of around 300 Euro Info Centres established by the European Commission. The objective is to provide the business community, legislators, students and the general public with user-friendly, high quality information on the European Community, in order to foster business cooperation and trade. A key objective of the EICC is to facilitate business cooperation between Kosovo and European SME's.

Kosovo Business Support (KBS) is a USAID funded programme aiming to support the revitalisation of business through a business services programme providing direct assistance and training to SME's as well as broader umbrella activities to provide general support for the Kosovo SME sector. KBS will eventually provide these services on a consultancy basis.

Other Sources of Information

The EU Pillar website can be found at www.euinkosovo.org
The UNMIK site is at www.unmikonline.org
The K-FOR website is at www.nato.int/kfor
The OSCE website is at www.osce.org/kosovo/
The Police & Justice website is at www.unmikonline.org/civpol/index.html
The Civil Administration website is at www.unmikonline.org/civiladm/index.html
The EAR website is at www.ear.eu.int