Attracting private, foreign investment to Kosovo focus of upcoming UN-backed meeting

Attracting private investment from abroad, particularly from the roughly 500,000 Kosovo Albanians living overseas, will be the focus of a United Nations-backed conference in New York on boosting the province's economic future.

With the privatization of some 350 collectively-owned businesses slated for later this year, the first wave of investors will have a unique opportunity to take part in the new stage of economic development being planned for the UN-administered province, said organizers of the Kosovo Investment Conferences (KICO), which gets underway tomorrow.

"We know that potential foreign investors are those individuals with personal contacts and special knowledge of and interest in Kosovo," said Prime Minister Bajram Rexhepi. "We believe that a significant number of ordinary non-residents could play a major role in contributing to Kosovo's economy."

In addition to Mr. Rexhepi, other speakers scheduled to address the Conference include Francesco Bastagli, the Secretary-General's Deputy Special Representative for Kosovo, representatives of the United States Government, and officials from the Kosovo Chamber of Commerce and the Kosovo Trust Agency (KTA).

Kosovo currently relies primarily on trade and imports, but needs a fresh infusion of private investment if it hopes to have a viable economic future, the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) said in a statement. "A sound base of regulations governing private sector growth, as well as privatisation, has been developed to provide an enabling environment to support and sustain a free-market economy," it noted.