Welcome to today’s edition of UNMIK On Air.

Back in the 90’s Kosovo Albanians liked to joke that although every Albanian earned 100 DM they somehow managed to spend 1000 DM and yet save 200 DM. This may or may not help one understand that even with unemployment running at more than 50 percent, almost every fourth Kosovan owns a car. According to one expert every household owns a car and yet maintaining one is considered a luxury.

According to UNMIK’s Vehicle Registration Unit there are more than 260.000 cars registered in Kosovo. A huge figure for Kosovo standards, given the economic conditions here and the fact that roads are not equipped to take this kind of traffic. Yet business seems to be thriving.

The car market in Prishtina is the right place to go if one wants to buy a car. This has become a weekly occurrence in the Kosovan capital since 1999 – and judging from the number of visitors and dealers, cars are big business in Kosovo today, despite the odds.

The market is open only on Sundays and is one of the most visited sites during that day. The market has a wide range of vehicles on offer - from small cars to big trucks and buses.

Blerim Shkodra is the owner of “Shkodra Auto Saloon” – the company deals with used cars and new ones and has branches in several Kosovan cities. He explains that although people buy cars, most of the time they remain parked in front of their houses. The majority can’t afford to run them, he says.

Most of the cars are brought from Germany and Italy, and according to Blerim, people tend to prefer German made cars, for their reliability and because it is much easier to find spare parts. But like every business this one too involves lots of problems and difficulties.

Blerim Shkodra: We at Shkodra auto saloon buy cars from Germany and Italy and most of the cars are German made. Transport is done in an organized way and the personnel of Shkodra auto saloon buy the cars in Germany. At the moment we are facing the problem of transportation and tax payment and I think that car taxes in Kosovo are the highest in Balkans.

Although people would like to drive newer models, they cannot afford to because of the high tax rates and excise. Skender, a regular visitor at the car market says that it is not that hard to find a good car in Germany but the problem is that you have to pay taxes that are in fact higher than the actual value of the car.

Skender: Right now I’m driving a 1989 Volkswagen Passat diesel. Economic conditions do not allow me to buy a car that was manufactured more recently. Just today I searched on the Internet and I found a Volkswagen Golf IV for 6.000 euros in Germany, but if you want to register that car here you would have to pay 8.000 euros. The main problem is the excise, since as far as I know, excise duties are imposed in order to protect domestic products. But I do not know why we have excise in Kosovo considering that we do not produce bicycles let alone cars. But this keeps going on.

According to car salesman Blerim Shkodra, local sales have dropped dramatically. Fortunately, he adds, there are international clients and organizations as well as municipalities, who go there and buy cars two or three times a year. For the moment, that is his only hope for continuing his business.

But even here, the cars he sells are at least 5-10 years old.

Blerim Shkodra: In Kosovo the population cannot afford to buy new cars because of a very clear reason. From what I know, no one in Europe or in the world pays cash while buying a car but only on credit through banks. In Kosovo, I think it is going to take a long time, if I may say, at least 100 years before this will happen. The reason is that all my friends and colleagues who are employed do not have contracts longer than 6 months including with places like UNMIK, Police and local institutions.

Given the number of cars in Kosovo, it is not surprising that there are many problems. Falsified documents and the evasion of tax payment are not rare in Kosovo. During a routine check last week, almost 1/3 of the vehicles reportedly did not have proper documentation. KPS spokesman Refki Morina says that the police are working with regional police structures in order to deal with this problem.

Refki Morina: We cooperate with the regional police structures on the movements of vehicles around the region. We also work through the international organization Europol or directly with neighboring countries. We check on registration details and verify cars that entered from that country and check if we are dealing with a falsified car or not. If we find one, we initiate legal proceedings against the owner of that vehicle and then it is up to the court to decide whether we are dealing with a falsification or tax evasion.

Cracking down on this however will be a tough ball game – Kosovans are attached to their cars, owning a car, even a beat-up second hand one is a must for many people. But for the moment, owning a car wont necessarily get you very far – a car with KS number plates is still taboo on most European roads. And this is another problem that Kosovans hope will be solved as soon as possible.

And that does for this edition of UNMIK on air. Thanks for listening.