Chinese as a Threat to Merchants of Novi Pazar

In the town which is even has the trading profession in its name, trade depends much more on connections and corruption than on the quality of merchandise. How is Novi Pazar trading with Montenegro, and how with Kosovo?

AIM Podgorica, July 1, 2000

(From AIM Correspondent from Belgrade)

Novi Pazar is a fortress of jeans and shoes. The majority of Sanjak people live from the production of these articles which has been brought to the pink of perfection. There is scarcely a house which does not make a living from the production of jeans or shoes. As traders and manufacturers the denizens of Pazar have seen better days. Today, things are not going so well. At the crossroads of the Balkan roads, quarrels and wars they are the first to feel when "a mischief is brewing". The constantly shrinking state is becoming cramped for all the Pazar producers and traders. "Today it is hardest for us, the small-scale producers. We never obtained import licences for raw denim from Turkey and now bigger and larger firms, whose primary concern is precisely the licence, are sweeping the board. Their sales are guaranteed and sometimes they even make losses on purpose just to stifle the little firms", says for AIM Nuradin Salihpasic, a jeans producer who employs 14 workers in his workshop.

Apart from the principle according to which big fish eat little fish, the main reasons for dissatisfaction are, nevertheless, temporary loss of the Kosovo market and permanent loss of the Montenegrin market. Customers from Montenegro and Kosovo were considered as fair and regular payers. "Those who are well-connected today can take the goods even to Kosovo and Montenegro, ...and also export. There is a solution to everything. But, I have a small-scale production so that it's no use trying to get guarantees for the safe passage of goods across the border. Such services cost a lot of money. Everything is precisely fixed: the percentage depends on the quantity", adds Salihpasic who fled from Bosnia to Novi Pazar back in 1992. To this very day he is "having a lot of trouble in regulating his citizenship and getting a passport. All his property and deals are carried out in his wife's name, who is from these parts".

At the time of the war in Kosovo no one bought anything, apart from bare necessities. No one knew how long was the boss from Dedinje planning to keep staring through his window and for how long was NATO intent on bombing. The summer of 1999 was a big lottery when, in order to test the ground and make new acquaintances, the Pazar denizens took their goods to Kosovo by car without registration plates, at first just small quantities of jeans and shoes.

"Immediately after the bombing, Kosovo was not safe" tells us laughingly O.T., a twenty-four-year old carrier who insists on being mentioned only by initials because, as he says, he is there every day and things are not much better here either. "Kosovo is rolling in money, everyone knows that. Before the war we had no problem going there, you would bribe the police with a pair of jeans or some cigarettes. No more than DM 10 and they would let you pass. During the war, many citizens of Pazar went to Kosovska Mitrovica and lived from the money they earned on foreign exchange rate difference. There you could buy a German Mark for next to nothing and they did not profit from it, but we from Pazar did. It never crossed their minds (neither of the Serbs nor the Albanians). They had better things to do – to make war. At that time knowing Serbian language was worth a fortune, but as of June the Albanian became the main language. We first went to test the ground and if customers were satisfied they would keep an eye on our trucks... I took flour, sugar, bricks, building blocks, joinery. The rates were fixed: eight tons of goods cost DM 1,000 plus my connections with the Serbian police...".

Today trading with the Kosovars is rather awkward, some do not have any problems, while the others get killed. Electrical fittings are much cheaper now in Kosovo then in Serbia proper, because they are sold tax free, and the jeans will traditionally sell like hot cakes, same as shoes, in the autumn. From building materials, the bricks, i.e. those produced in the Serbian state brickworks, are in highest demand. As far as summer clothes are concerned, everything you can find in Pazar can be found in Kosovo, but the Kosovo goods come from Turkey and are a bit cheaper as no customs are paid on the open border with Macedonia.

Many Bosniacs from Sanjak have lost their lives offering goods in the towns of Kosovo. The public knows best the case of Sefcet Dragolovcanin, the chief Imam of the Islamic Community for Sjenica who, in addition to his religious service, was sold milk products. The Albanians killed him somewhere around Pec. The local wholesaler B. Ikic disappeared six months ago together with his van, goods and some thirty thousand German Marks. Nothing is yet known about Ikic's fate. There are frequent cases of beatings of carriers and merchants from Pazar by the Serbs who live next to the bridge over the Ibar river. Our collocutor O.T. confirms that there were such cases, even shootings, "but also exaggerations. Traders themselves start such stories so as to drive out the competition".

Unstable and cruel times in which one can easily get killed and increasingly difficult crossing of the border with Kosovo, have significantly reduced the commodity turnover from Pazar to Kosovo. Those well informed of the commercial situation in Novi Pazar, point out to a large number of foul dealings committed by Pazar merchants in Kosovo, when many Kosovars, after accepting advance payment, have been deceived at the final settling of accounts.

"I always load one bag of cement more, if we make a mistake when counting. I do not want my customers to think that I want to deceive them. When I started carrying cement for Vucitrn they used to weigh the sacks as if I had packed them" says for AIM Fuad Mehmedovic, who has been trading with the Kosovo Albanians ever since June 1999, and adds: "Last summer was most profitable. Those who had the money immediately started building houses so as to have shelter for the winter. This year is not nearly like the last, but at least something is being built in Kosovo and will be built even more as much money is coming from abroad and being turned over. Everything is open there: shops, restaurants, private producers, people are buying cars, furniture. Pristina is certainly richer than ever".

The decrease of commodity exchange of private entrepreneurs from Sanjak with the Kosovo market is one of the main reasons of increasingly evident economic crisis in Novi Pazar. Similar situation is in relation to the Montenegrin market.

No food, footwear or jeans can cross the border with Montenegro at the police control point Mehov Krs. This rule applies to most traders, but not to the strongest wholesalers, whose goods get across the republican border through secret channels and in cahoots with certain potentates. Many firms in Serbia and the Serbian parts of Sanjak are favoured by the regime and their products have no problem crossing the border with Montenegro. An inspector of the Novi Pazar Department of the Interior (MUP) told us that the policemen at Mehov Krs were issued orders that they shouldn't allow even tourists from Serbia to carry over the border more than two kilos of meat and twenty eggs. Consequently, some are allowed to take only twenty eggs, while others drive through whole trucks, some have their meat weighed in kilos others with refrigerated trucks. Smuggling goods over the hill, from the smaller into the larger Yugoslav republic, is now highly developed. It is common knowledge what is always in: cigarettes and fuel.

It seems that the official Montenegrin authorities have found the way to reduce the profit of the firms belonging to the Serbian ministers, as well as of those which are under the patronage of the SNP officials, who are also members of the Federal Government. Namely, all foodstuffs can be bought in Macedonia and convoys packed with food come from Kosovo daily. With the competition of the Serbian ministers' firms and the Macedonian goods, which do not have to cross to Serbia over Mehov Krs, there is nothing left for the merchants of Novi Pazar who have, therefore, reduced their trading operations with Montenegrins to jeans, shoes and T-shirts. In other words, only to things that are produced in Novi Pazar.

True, livestock which tough guys from Novi Pazar buy mostly in Sumadija and Pester (where farmers are forced to sell cattle because of the dry season and shortage of hay), still keeps coming to Kosovo and from there, over Leposavici, Kosovska Mitrovica and Pec come to Montenegrin cattle markets in Rozaje, Podgorica and Niksic. This shows that the control of the Serbian MUP is much more "lax" on the border with Kosovo than on the border with Montenegro. Does it mean that the current Serbian regime has greater quarrel with Djukanovic than with the Albanians, or that Milosevic's regime has momentarily neglected (or, perhaps, forgotten) the Kosovo problems and is concentrating on Montenegro?

The economy, in any form and branch, does not recognise either clinical or actual death. Trading is a like petit point. And yet, under the circumstances, all social-political relations are very visible in Novi Pazar trading and production activities. Procurement, sale and marketing are three key words which depend on numerous elements, which traders and producers have no influence on, but which they can beat only if they adjust their interests to those of much stronger players.

The Pazar merchants are losing another kind of customers: owners of boutiques all over Serbia who, from early nineties, have been buying Turkish imported clothes from the manufacturers of Novi Pazar. Travelling to Turkey in order to bring vans full of clothes seemed too risky during the war in Bosnia. Times have changed, so that today Serbs have organised import from Turkey and the local tradesmen are no longer able to earn one German Mark on each invested DM.

Another proof, of the above mentioned claim on the influence of broader social-political relations on the profits of local merchants, is the latest JUL-Chinese cooperation. "I have been smuggling goods from Turkey ever since 1985 when it was something to be ashamed of, I shared market place with Romanies, experienced all sorts of troubles crossing the border, I cannot remember how many fines I had to pay and how many times they confiscated my goods. I worked in freezing winter and under all kind of weather and had many ups and downs, but somehow survived. And, all of a sudden came the Chinese, much cheaper than we are and took over our customers. It's no help that they never actually came to Pazar, we are unable to live off our work anymore. They bring tons of their products and although the margin between the purchasing and selling price must be very narrow, they make good profit because they sell enormous quantities of goods", tells us R. Ibrahimovic.

There are many things which contribute to poor business results of tradesmen and producers in Novi Pazar which, admittedly, still does not lack money, but laments for the times of informal monopoly when there was no competition and no fear that goods will have to wait long for a buyer. The reason is not the harshness of the financial police of which the Pazar denizens constantly complain (in vain).

There are even opinions that the financial police is fair in its treatment because of JUL interests and expectations in these parts. Such opinions are also corroborated by the fact that even the "blue police" has greatly changed its attitude towards the people in Sanjak.

"If only we had a strong association that would not smuggle the goods, no one could take our earnings", says D.K., a wholesale dealer. "We could sell our goods below purchasing price and after suffering losses for one year, eliminate all the competition. This would imply that all our members would work for one year without a profit. If we could manage to sell goods to Montenegrins for lower prices than Macedonians, that would be a success. We could do good business with everyone if we could control our own sales, which are enormous despite everything. Just look at the number of trailer trucks we have here. No one can count them. I claim that in five years we could hold a monopoly on some thirty kinds of goods and cover the entire Balkans".

This is how things stand currently in Novi Pazar, which has been trying for years to present itself less important in economic terms than it really is. All these traders, one after another, are lowering their selling prices and accepting the profit which is far from that in early nineties. Trading is just a petty business and these are the times of major deals.

Enes Halilovic

(AIM)