On Friday, April 28, 20 women entrepreneurs from Kosovo went to Düsseldorf where they had the opportunity to meet with dozens of businesses led by Albanians in Germany for two days.

On the first day, they visited the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (IHK) in Essen city.

On Saturday, on the second day of the women entrepreneurs’ visit to Düsseldorf, they had the opportunity to meet with businesses led by Albanians in Germany.

On Saturday, on the second day of the women entrepreneurs’ visit to Düsseldorf, they had the opportunity to meet with businesses led by Albanians in Germany.

The co-director of GERMIN, Sihana Bejtullahu, shared details about the project “Diaspora for Women Entrepreneurs” supported by USAID Kosovo Compete Activity. She emphasized that this is the second cohort of this project and pointed to the successes of the first cohort when a similar meeting was held in Zurich, Switzerland. Bejtullahu said that more official relations between the diaspora and Kosovo seem to have been established.

“As an organization that deals directly with the Albanian diaspora for almost 10 years, we know that Germany is the second home for Kosovars. We mostly accept remittances from Germany and our diaspora continues to live connected to the homeland. Therefore, it is essential to create strong institutional links so that the cooperation between our countries is meaningful”.

Dafina Rexha, from USAID Kosovo Compete Activity, showed how the idea was born to make a project that focuses on women entrepreneurs in Kosovo.

“It is a good initiative for empowering women entrepreneurs in Kosovo. I believe the diaspora will also see that women in Kosovo work hard and have the will. They can cooperate and thus have a mutual business benefit”.

Rexha, revealed the successes of the USAID Kosovo Compete Activity, emphasizing that the key goal of this program is the close work with the private sector, with particular emphasis on the wood processing, food and ICT sectors.

The Managing Director of the Union of Albanian-German Businesses in Germany, Fadil Abdullahu, spoke before the guests emphasizing the main goals of this union.

“The first objective is to identify Albanian businesses in Germany. Our goal is to know exactly how many businesses there are in Germany in total. The second point is that together we represent these businesses before local, central and even federal institutions”.

According to Abdullah, after the identification of all the businesses of Albanians in Germany is done, it will then be decided that they can contribute to their homeland, since according to him “there is no business that does not intend to contribute to the homeland”.

After the speeches, a discussion panel was held on the topic “Opportunities of cooperation: Diaspora for Women Entrepreneurs’ ‘ which was led by the Manager of this project in GERMIN, Blerina Ukshini. The panelists were: Vesa Morina, Zeta Corporation, Emire Duraku, Agro Krusha, Evelina Nreca-Terrnava, Metaltech and Fatmir Sinani, mentor from the diaspora.

After the panel, the women held B2B meetings where they had the opportunity to network with businesses from the diaspora. Then the Member of the Presidency of the Union of Albanian and German Businesses, Shkëndije Berisha-Pacolli, shared her story with women entrepreneurs.

In the end, the 20 women entrepreneurs had the opportunity to visit the business of the ICT sector, Rexhi.com.