Last year, the prestigious “Washington Post” wrote to the American audience and public describing the village of Nivica, where we are today, as following:

“Wonderful landscape, and also the untouched life where you can see shepherds in their pastoral daily life, which is extremely attractive to people who have lost that heritage, and you would come here and find that spiritual enrichment in your life.”

And I am very pleased we are here today at another station of our journey towards development of the “100 Villages”, part of the Integrated Rural Development Program, and I am pleased in particular because I have been given the opportunity to be here together with some very precious friends, including a dear friend, who has served as Sweden’s Prime Minister for 10 years, who reformed Sweden and at the same time had a special role in reforming the European left. Today he is here along with a group of friends to promote and support this Program as part of our joint endeavour to add a whole new dimension to Albania’s rural development and to build concrete examples, models of tangible of success through the transformation of natural beauties, tradition and agribusiness entrepreneurial initiative into a source of welfare and a way to lift the rural families out of poverty.

We are very glad that the project has attracted a lot of interest and there is an ever growing number of actors who want to join in, primarily local Albanians who have emigrated and who are exploring investment opportunities in their hometown. The project has attracted other actors too, who have joined us at today’s meeting and they are primarily rural development and planning professionals, who have joined us in this shared effort together with the university, academia to materialize the “100 Villages Program.

We are visiting Nivica today after having taken an initial significant step together with the Tepelena Mayor and that is the step towards the urban revitalization of this of this small centre and which will further expand to revive other surrounding areas, relying on the entire area’s potential. The today’s meeting is also a forum to discuss on concrete terms, as well as to create a centre of gravity, attracting the attention of those interested in investing in this area, as well as in other areas included in the 100 villages program map. Hundred villages across the country have been defined as gravity centres for a sustainable development and a different development of Albania’s rural space.

We are convinced a strong reference point of rural development will be built in this 2400-year-old village, home to a wonderful nature, incredible biodiversity and exemplary hospitality. Just like we are deeply convinced that it is crucially important that joining us today are also several representatives of other friendly countries, not only the Ambassador of Sweden, but also the ambassadors of Austria and the Czech Republic, who are here to demonstrate their interest as part of a twining program we have jointly developed together with other involved countries in order to bring together different realities, villages and rural spaces of Albania with villages and rural spaces of Europe and a wider region.

In its new fiscal package, the government has cut the VAT rate applied on accommodation units in the tourism industry to only six percent and the profit tax rate to five percent only from a previous 15% rate, and it has eliminated any other tax or tariff on the construction permits, tax on infrastructure, while the profit tax rate on agricultural cooperatives will be only five percent and we expect such agricultural enterprises to go hand in hand with the transformation process of the 100 villages. The Academy of 100 villages has been already established and has become operational with its working groups already working on the ground.

Thank you!