“Austrian-Kosovo Industry Day 2015’ Conference Held
07/10/2015The Austrian Kosovo Society in Kosovo and the UBT, in cooperation with the Ministry of Trade and Industry of Kosovo, organized today a conference “Austrian- Kosovo Industry Day 2015” with the aim of promoting industry sector in Kosovo based on the Austrian model.
Addressing the conference, UBT Rector Prof. Dr. Edmond Hajrizi said among others that the responsibility of the UBT in this forum was to highlight new expertise of this sector and quality in offering of services.
“Today’s forum is an excellent opportunity for exchanging our experiences. But, what is the UBT’s responsibility? The UBT’s responsibility is to convey new expertise of this sector. We cannot have new achievements individually but rather by relying on our partners and expanding cooperation and ideas. Instead of importing, we need to develop the economy of our country. What we are thinking of doing now is to focus on the concept of quality. Since 2002, we have held many activities on quality, while today everything is settled but we need to work in this direction,” Hajrizi said.
David Ungar from the Vienna-based ComSult, who is a specialist on technology, noted that the main issues that Kosovo should focus on, as a country that seeks to develop this sector, are qualitative education and innovation (production, entrepreneurship, and so on). According to Ungar, a there need to be potentials for developing business location and many investors are not aware that Kosovo has an industrial location. He noted that infrastructure that meets the condition for business plays a key role.
“On thing is very important in this process: digitalization or modernization. In this way, one can successfully start with the promotion of this field. One need to promote the locations in Kosovo and this is the best way to attract investments. In addition, if you have the necessary infrastructure, this is an image that helps attracting investments. Around 60% of the questions of business managers in the world are related to infrastructure. So, infrastructure is the main factor and this helps attracting more investors,” Ungar said.
Jan Peters Olters, manager of the World Bank in Kosovo, said the objective of the industry in Kosovo is to speak less about potentials and pay instead attention to the opportunities. According to him, industry is an area involving different challenges.
“Kosovo has low capital flow; it has gaps in productivity, which are still obvious. The main focus and most efficient is improving the quality and then improving productivity. There has to be less talk about potentials and more on the opportunities, because this is a challenging field and the trends so far support growing industry,” Olters said.
Emmanuel Mitsou, a representative from the “Sharrcem” (Kosovar cement company), said the field needed preconditions for a successful development. According to him, this sector is not by accident here because there are supporting potentials and the young people see it as an opportunity.
“We need to know that the potentials are seen by the young people of the country. It is true that there are many problems and we need a plan but this industry is not accidental here, yet it needs preconditions to be able to develop. When we try to see Kosovo as a business location, we also need to see its model. A business environment starts with small but important steps and not by thinking about major frameworks or laws. So, initially one has to think about the broader schemes,” Mitsou said.
Kostas Rizopoulous, a representative of Ferronikeli (an international company specialized on mining and production of ferronickel), spoke about the investments that have been made by that company. He explained that 100 million dollars were invested to start the work and over the years they had managed to increase the production. Speaking about the business opportunities in Kosovo, Rizopoulos said the country needed to change the approach and to respect the business community.
Other panelists who spoke at the conference emphasizing a number of elements related to industry, including the ways of organization, professional support, and competitiveness with world companies, which need to be achieved in order to ensure the presence of the Kosovo products in the world markets.