A 30 million dollars investment project is underway designed to enhance processing capacities at the ferrochrome production plant in the central Albanian city of Elbasan. According to the company operating the facility, the investment represents a new investment programme aiming to raise the processing capacity and the ferrochrome output. This was acknowledged by the company representatives during the Prime Minister Edi Rama’s visit to the ferrochrome plant in Elbasan today.

“The output capacity has increased to over 300.000 metric tonnes a year. We have hired 210 workers with monthly salaries over $600,” the company representative said.

Investments worth $150 million have been implemented over the past seven years, whereas an investment programme estimated at over $130 million is currently underway. These investments have multiplied the processing capacities of the domestic chrome output. Thanks to the investments in building five new furnaces, compared to only one furnace that was operational seven years ago, we now process over 100.000 tonnes of chrome compared to 28.000 tonnes processed previously. The sector’s rebirth has helped not only the processing capacities to grow, but it has been also translated into higher income for the workers in the chrome processing and mining sector. The gross monthly salary of a miner is over $1450, a mining technician receives $1230, whereas a wagon driver receives $1020.

“This has been main challenge the sector has been facing, as the situation resembled to the mining in the Middle Ages, with the extracted minerals loaded on ships heading to other countries and its price was extremely cheap compared to the value it takes when refined. The official data show somehow same terms, with the industry now capable of processing and refining over the half of the mineral output. This has also lead to a significant increase in the salaries of workers in chromium processing sector. Our ambition is to process whole chromium output in the country. I am convinced we have applied right mineral royalty policy, although some of these national-communists disguised as European liberals, who claim that the mineral royalty is a measure designed to favour oligarchs, but indeed, the mining royalty decrease actually favours the sector, the country’s economy and workers in this sector. There are also countries that subsidize the output.”

Investments in this sector will keep growing, until the last volume of crude production in the country is processed, the Premier stated.