Kosovo Customs Tariff Alarms Bosnia's Dairy Farmers

Bosnian foodstuff producers are worried after Kosovo imposed a 10-per-cent customs tariff on imports from Bosnia and Serbia this week, citing their hostility towards Kosovo.

The trade balance between the two countries is unequal; the value of Bosnian exports to Kosovo is about ten times larger than Kosovo's exports to Bosnia.

Bosnia's Foreign Trade Chamber and the European Commission Trade Website say the country exported goods to Kosovo in 2017 worth some 80 million euros.

The cost of Bosnia's imports from Kosovo amounted to a paltry 8 million euros.

The Kosovo government abolished all import tariffs on milk and dairy products from Bosnia in August this year, as part of CEFTA regulations, which was seen as a boost to Bosnian dairy producers.

Milk and dairy products were among top five Bosnian exports to Kosovo in 2017, earning the country 5.5 million euros, data from the Bosnian Foreign Trade Chamber show.

After Montenegro, Croatia, Macedonia and Serbia, Kosovo is Bosnia's main export partner for these products, according to Bosnia's Agency for Statistics.

"A lot of [dairy] producers were relying on the abolished tariffs, but now, with the new tariffs imposed, they will rethink their plans," Duljko Hasic, an economics analyst from the Foreign Trade Chamber, told BIRN.

 Bosnia's top five export products to Kosovo for the first nine months of 2018 were iron and steel, worth 20 million euros, meat, fish, and shellfish, worth some 5.5 million euros, and diary and poultry, worth 4 million euros.

Wood and wood products like charcoal exported during 2018 were worth 3.5 million euros and electrical machinery and equipment were worth 3 million euros, the Trade Chamber said.

"With the new tariffs imposed on Bosnia...