Prishtina, 6 April, 2023
Dear Speaker of the Assembly, Mr. Glauk Konjufca,
Dear Members of Parliament,
Dear citizens,
I thank you for the session you requested. I thank the deputies who have done this. I listened very carefully to the preface and now I would like to elaborate here before you some data regarding the results of the first two years of government.
The list of statistical data regarding qualitative changes and improvements in many sectors is very long. I will not read them all, because each minister will present the achievements in their sectors. Likewise, the ministers will also address criticisms and remarks depending on their field of activity. Let’s take it, from how the Law, which increases the minimum wage, has already passed the first reading and is not in the Government, it is in the Assembly, to the fact that the Trust had a loss when it had a Board and paradoxically these three months, that there was no Board, there was profit. This does not say anything about the principle of the matter, but about the contradiction of your question, but all these will be dealt with one by one by the ministers according to the field of activity that they have.
I will focus on work and justice, as two pillars of our February 14 pledges and as our daily commitment.
The economy belongs to everyone and if it goes well, we should all be happy, because it affects us all.
In the first year of government, we had a 10.7% increase in the gross domestic product, which is the highest in the country’s history. Whereas in 2022, when our entire continent was suffering economically as a result of the Russian aggression in Ukraine, the increase was about 4%, once inflation is removed. If the average of two years is taken, it is about 7%. The highest average for two consecutive years since the declaration of Independence.
What does this economic growth mean? You will find an answer if you look at the growth of exports. For 2022, we had about 920 million exports, this year we will exceed 1 billion. The increase in exports shows the increase in the vitality of our economy, the growth of the goods and services producing sectors.
The export-import ratio in 2019, the year before I became prime minister for the first time, was 1 to 9. Today it is less than 1 to 6. If we continue like this, and of course we will continue like this, with the help of entrepreneurs of workers engaged in the productive sectors, the export-import ratio will continue to improve and the trade deficit will decrease.
It’s been two years, so it’s half of the mandate, and we still have a lot of work to do, and a lot of new policies to implement, to help export and local production. But the situation has already changed, for the better. She is optimistic. We have finally managed to reduce the budget deficit of 2022 to a historical record of only (-€49.1 million), more than 11 times less than in 2020. And, for two years, foreign direct investments have doubled.
This is also evident in the budget. The state budget has increased by 760 million euros for two years, while the economy has increased by 2.1 billion euros. So we have the Republic of Kosovo with our government with an overall economy of 9 billion euros.
In the past, governments needed 3 years to add only 1 billion to the economy, and now in two years you have more than 2 billion – I’m talking about the years 2016-2019 – compared to them.
Since the economy has grown by a much greater value than the budget, it seems that the government, or the public budget, is weighing more easily than before, in relation to the size of the economy. This is also something healthy for entrepreneurship and the private sector because it shows that in the market full of energy that our country has, the government is not hindering by increasing the burden, but on the contrary by reducing it. Doing business not only to register but to be operational, to operate and to profit has never been more profitable than now.
This economic growth has also resulted in increased employment. For 21 months from March 2021 to December 2022, primary employment increased from 325,467 employees to 362,817 employees, i.e. 37,350 more for 21 months and the number of employed women is 50.3% of the overall increase, i.e. slightly more how many half are women who entered new jobs during this 21-month period.
As never before, new social support and employment programs have been created, such as allowances for 34,000 mothers and 340,000 children. So 34,000 mothers and 340,000 children did not receive a single cent in the past, and now they are practically supported by the state, and the moment the law passes the second reading on the minimum wage, the allowances for mothers will automatically increase.
“SuperPuna” with 1,500 new work relationships for young people between the ages of 18 and 25. So, 1500 young people of this age group between these two years from 18 to 25 have been employed; “Government for Families” and 1,500 families that have benefited from having at least one employed member. There are even more families than that without any employed member, but 1500 have already benefited and among them are 603 women; “Support for Employment of Women” with 5,000 employed women; “Support for Persons with Disabilities” for 239 persons, of whom about 51% are women.
842 million euros have been redistributed in these schemes and support packages to deal with inflation, as well as support for 280 thousand pensioners, 24 thousand families with social assistance, 66 thousand students, 76 thousand public officials and 17 thousand workers in the private sector who benefited from increases salary through subsidy.
In order to face the multiple crises that resulted in an increase in energy prices, we directly subsidized electricity bills for 208,000 families; we subsidized the purchase of efficient heating equipment for over 9,000 families. At the same time, we have subsidized the new tariffs for every family and business in the country.
All this, dear MPs, is work. But, you know that our election pledge was work but also justice.
In this assembly, we approved the Law on the State Bureau for the Verification and Confiscation of Unjustifiable Assets. What is not justified is an unfair advantage that must be confiscated. The process that will lead to the vetting in the justice system has already started with the Assembly. The Commercial Court has been operationalized, which will facilitate the work of all businesses and enterprises operating in Kosovo.
The rule of law has been strengthened by fighting organized crime and corruption. With the contribution of thousands of professional policemen, but also with the support of citizens, we have managed to have over 850 police operations against organized crime and smuggling in these two years. Over 3,200 people have been arrested in these actions, and over 300 of them are public officials.
In the north of the country, we closed 16 illegal roads that were used for trafficking and smuggling. We destroyed 83 criminal groups with members of all ethnicities, and confiscated about 2 tons of narcotic substances. During these two years, we destroyed 14 drug labs, 8 of them in the North, as well as 3 crypto currency labs, also in the North. And in the north, about 40 kilometers of asphalt roads have been added.
Until 2021, there was no police station with Rapid Intervention and Green Line border units, now we have 7 of them. We have built 4 facilities and police stations in the north of Kosovo, which contribute primarily to the well-being and safety of the residents of that area, but also to the fight against organized crime and corruption, and to the control of the territory within our state.
All this progress has been reflected in independent measurements of international indices.
The European Union’s report for our country from October of last year considered that for Kosovo no field is without progress, and it was evaluated as the most positive report for Kosovo so far.
In Transparency International in the fight against corruption for the year 2021-2022, we have risen to 20 places.
In Reporters without Borders/Media Freedom Index 2022, for 17 countries;
In the World Bank’s Technology Maturity Index, we have risen from group C to B for the focus on digital governance.
We rank first in the Western Balkans for these three:
– To the International Monetary Fund regarding the increase in revenue collection for the years 2020-2022.
– To Freedom House for the improvement in political rights and civil liberties; second in Europe after Slovenia, third in the world after Slovenia and Colombia.
– To the World Justice Project for the rule of law, second in the world in terms of improvement in this field, and to the V-Dem Institute for Electoral Democracy.
So, Freedom House, World Justice Project, V-Dem and the International Monetary Fund are the first in the Balkans.
These achievements make us all proud because we all work together for this, with the citizens. These achievements improve the image of the state, and therefore of all of us. These, dear MPs, are just some of the work we have done in the past two years. Of course, I did not have the opportunity to mention everything, but they will cover as I said the ministers of the field. You are part of our successes. So the successes are shared, so I also thank all of you and each of you for the role and contribution in these two years of governance, namely in the first half of our mandate.
Last modified: April 7, 2023