Researcher Adri Nurellari has said that the structure of Kosovo's trade balance reflects an unsustainable economic model, where the country consumes high-value products while exporting low-value goods.
According to him, Kosovo mainly imports cars, oil, energy and medicines, while exports are dominated by basic products such as plastics, furniture and textiles, creating a significant gap in economic value.
He stressed that the country's economy relies mainly on remittances and money from abroad, transforming Kosovo into a "transit economy", where money circulates quickly to foreign markets without creating sustainable value within the country.
Nurellari warned that without an orientation towards production, technology and value-added industry, Kosovo risks remaining dependent on consumption and in a disadvantageous position in the global economic chain.
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This trade balance graph shows that Kosovo lives on an economic illusion; because it consumes like a developed country, but produces like an underdeveloped peripheral country. We import mostly cars, oil, energy, medicines (i.e. everything that has high value) while exporting plastics, furniture, textiles and simple metals (i.e. the minimum possible). This means that we are buying what has more value and selling what has less. In other words, Kosovo is working with muscles (basic industries) to pay for the brains of others.
Here we are not dealing simply with a trade deficit but with an economy built backwards. Kosovo’s economy today is being sustained by remittances and money coming in from abroad, not by its own productive strength. This is why we have a “modern” appearance on the streets, but a poor reality in the economy. Cars, oil and cigarettes are products that are consumed and “evaporate” within the annual cycle. They do not create new productive value but simply take currency out of the country.
Kosovo has thus become a "Transit Economy" where money coming in from the diaspora passes through the pockets of citizens and immediately ends up with foreign producers. In short, we are a society that consumes like the rich, but produces like the poor, and this illusion cannot last indefinitely without producing a structural collapse.
In a normal economy, the main weight of imports should be machinery, technology, equipment and raw materials that feed production chains. Unfortunately, Kosovo imports mainly to consume because it produces very little. Without a clear shift from consumption to production, from imports to industry and from low profit margins to added value, Kosovo risks remaining permanently trapped at the end of the global economic chain.
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