Reuters reports on the available estimates of smuggling between Kosovo and Serbia.

From Reuters:

There is no single reliable estimate of the volume of trade between Serbia and Kosovo.

Serb sources say that in 2007 it was $200 million, mostly Serb exports of construction material and machinery, with smuggling accounting for an additional $50 million a year.

Kosovo estimates are much higher at around $750 million, $450 million of that illegal.

“The most commonly smuggled goods are cattle, narcotics and jeans,” said Dejan Jovovic of Serbia’s Chamber of Commerce.

The smuggling channels mostly go through the Sandzak area of southern Serbia, a region famous for its prolific production of fake Levi’s jeans in the 1990s, when Serbia was under international sanctions for its role in the Yugoslav wars.

Milan Kovacevic, a Belgrade-based business consultant, said legal trade will suffer until bilateral ties are cleared up.

“Goods will take illegal routes until Serbia and Kosovo resolve the dispute by signing a political agreement,” he said. “Only after that will trade boom: Kosovo and Serbia are linked, they are neighbors and were once part of the same country.”