Minister Hajdari met with entrepreneurs from the manufacturing and service industries, local industrial associations and the intergovernmental negotiating group for the Free Trade Agreement between Kosovo and EFTA member states.
Prishtinë,
04/02/2025
After 2 years of successful negotiations in 4 rounds, between Kosovo and the EFTA member states, with the counterpart Ministers of Switzerland, Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland and the presence of Prime Minister Kurti, Minister Hajdari signed the Free Trade Agreement between Kosovo and the EFTA member states, on January 22 of this year 2025, at the House of Switzerland within the framework of the World Economic Forum, in Davos, Switzerland.
Minister Hajdari said, "With our aim for a competitive economy in the international market, for the first time we ensured full access of Kosovo's manufacturing and service industries to the market of EFTA countries: Switzerland, Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland, eliminating customs tariffs and providing many trade facilitations, for all industrial products, the majority of agricultural products, as well as for all professional services of Kosovo."
For comparison, the Republic of Kosovo is the only country in the region that, in addition to the chapter on trade in goods, has also negotiated the chapter on trade in services in this agreement!" Therefore, today, before local entrepreneurs in the manufacturing and service industries, Minister Hajdari detailed the benefits with extraordinary opportunities from the chapters negotiated between Kosovo and EFTA member states on trade in goods, trade in services, rules of origin, trade facilitation and customs cooperation, sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS) and technical barriers to trade (TBT), trade remedies, intellectual property rights, competition, trade and sustainable development.
The signing of the Free Trade Agreement with many chapters, well negotiated and with great commitment, by our intergovernmental team led by the Ministry of Industry, Entrepreneurship and Trade, is a new era for expanding economic cooperation and strengthening the partnership of the Republic of Kosovo with EFTA member states, said, inter alia, Minister Hajdari.