Bedri Hamza (born 8 November 1963) is a politician and administrator in Kosovo. He has been the Republic of Kosovo's finance minister on two occasions, served three terms in the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo, was governor of the Central Bank of Kosovo from 2013 to 2017, and is the current mayor of South Mitrovica. Hamza is a prominent member of the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK).
Early life and career
Hamza was born to a Kosovo Albanian family in the village of Klina e Epërme in the municipality of Skenderaj, in what was then the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija in the Socialist Republic of Serbia, Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He graduated from the historical University of Pristina's Faculty of Economics in 1987 and later received a master's degree from the post-1999 institution of the same name on the topic, "Problems of improving the fiscal system of the Republic of Kosovo." He has taken doctoral studies at the University of Tirana in Albania.
Hamza was head of accounting and finance at Trepča Lead Metallurgy in Mitrovica from 1987 to 1990. He worked in the private sector from 1990 to 1998 and led the Mitrovica municipal assembly's directorate of public services from 2000 to 2003.
Politician and administrator
Hamza was a candidate on the PDK's electoral list for Mitrovica in the 2002 Kosovan local elections. Online sources do not indicate if he served in the local assembly afterward.
He appeared in the eighty-first position on the PDK's list in the 2004 Kosovan parliamentary election and was not elected when the list won thirty seats. The PDK was in opposition from 2004 to 2008, and Hamza served on the party's shadow cabinet with responsibility for finance and economy. In 2006, he was a member of Kosovo's delegation to Vienna for discussions with the Republic of Serbia on economic issues.
Deputy minister (2008–11) Hamza was given the fifty-fifth position on the PDK's list in the 2007 parliamentary election. Parliamentary elections in Kosovo are held under open list proportional representation, and he finished in fortieth place among the party's candidates. The list won thirty-seven mandates, and he was not elected. Due to a requirement that one-third of seats be reserved for female candidates, he was also not immediately in line for a replacement mandate.
The PDK and the rival Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) formed a coalition government after the 2007 election. In January 2008, Hamza was appointed as Kosovo's deputy minister of economy and finance. In June of the same year, he and Albanian economy, trade, and energy minister Genc Ruli announced an agreement on cooperation for electrical power. Later in 2008, Hamza announced that Kosovo's government would not allow its borders to operate on United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) regulations.
Hamza said in a 2009 interview that investment in energy, roads, and private sector were necessary strategic steps to boost economic growth in Kosovo. He added that years of high growth would be needed to address issues of endemic poverty, saying, "To reduce poverty and unemployment we need to have economic growth of more than eight percent for the next six or seven years."
He had the opportunity to enter the Kosovo assembly in March 2010 but instead continued to serve as a deputy minister. He would not have been able to hold both positions simultaneously under a dual mandate.
Finance minister (first time: 2011–13) The PDK–LDK coalition fell apart in late 2010, and a new parliamentary election was held in December of that year. Hamza was again included on the PDK's electoral list and this time finished in eleventh place among its candidates. The PDK won thirty-four seats, and he was elected to the assembly. His first term as a legislator as brief; the PDK formed government after the election, and Hamza was appointed as Kosovo's finance minister on the day the assembly convened.
As minister, Hamza pursued a privatization strategy for Kosovo Telecom. In April 2011, he signed an agreement with Zoran Stavreski, the finance minister for the Republic of Macedonia (now North Macedonia), on double taxation avoidance and protection from tax evasion. The following year, he signed an agreement with Turkish finance minister Mehmet Şimşek to collaborate on mutual tax relations.
