As the number of those infected with coronavirus marked an increase in Kosovo, economy experts are against a possible total lockdown, saying that those measures might lead the country to a collapse with unbearable consequences.
The executive director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Kosovo, Arian Zeka told the news agency Kosovo Press that a second closure of economic activities would lead to the mass closure of private enterprises and jobs.
“By respecting the recommendations of the National Institute of Public Health to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is possible to strictly implement these recommendations and these protocols at the same time not to ban economic activity, otherwise what we can see by the end of this year, even in 2021 is a massive closure of the country’s enterprises,” Zeka told Kosova Press.
Nagip Skenderi, a professor at the Faculty of Economy of the Public University “Hasan Prishtina” said that the Government should not in any way ban economic activities because the economic collapse with new restrictive measures is inevitable.
“The state should intervene in this case in the awareness of the population and not come to a complete economic and social blockade as a whole […] the examples of developed countries should be followed,” Skenderi said.
While the deputy minister of Finance Agim Krasniqi said that another closure of businesses obliges the Ministry of Finance to review budget expenditures within the next three months.
Only yesterday Kosovo reported 4 deaths and 418 new cases with COVID- 19.
It took the total number of infected to 19,328 since the beginning of the pandemic. About 93,000 people have been tested, 1,608 on Friday alone.
