An open meeting with local residents to take stock of the projects implemented in the municipality of Kolonjë took place on Tuesday afternoon at the recently-renovated pedestrian street in the town of Erseke.
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Prime Minister Edi Rama: As many as 20,000 foreign and local tourists visited Kolonja this year! Who could possibly imagine this just a few years ago? But if the figure of 20 000 tourists is impressive, I can fully confidently state that it won’t take many years for this number to jump to over 200,000 visitors, both local and foreign ones who will visit this blessed area and will spend at least one night and this would be translated into the transformation of the household and local economy in Kolonjë.
Kolonjë has been suffering from isolation because of the lack of the road infrastructure connecting this area with the city of Korça, whereas on its part will also benefit from the close connection with Kolonjë, which will be an additional reason, a very big one indeed ,for everyone to return and visit Korça too. The third fact is that one of the largest and most strategic energy investment projects for this region and the whole country is already underway here in Kolonjë, not far from here, namely the investment in construction of a huge solar power energy with an installed generation capacity of 40 Mwh, an investment project launched by a local family, the father and his two sons, who returned back home to launch such an enterprise after having graduated in England.
This is another important indicator of Kolonje’s hidden and untapped potential, alongside the medicinal plants harvesting, for which I am confident Mayor Erion will build a modern collection and processing centre, because the medicinal plants and aromatic herbs represent a large economy, an untapped economy, but today the time has come to be put to use and become a complementary economy for many local families in the area.
If I tell you that horse-ring and recreational activities may generate significant earnings in this area. It might sound somehow funny if no other similar examples have been already set elsewhere in Albania for some time now and it is now clear the sort of attraction and the adventure tourism they promote. I highlighted just one of many examples. In short, I believe we are well on the right track and I am here to tell everyone we are not going through the best of times and it takes hard work and patience, as well as strong resilience, because the situation we are experiencing is not easy at all.
Having said that, I am confident we are doing the best possible, because we have primarily established a financial shield protecting all Albanian households and, most importantly, small businesses, which are now paying exactly the same pre-crisis electricity price after the global energy crisis triggered by the Russian aggression on Ukraine.
You probably remember the day when I appeared on the TV last September to warn about a looming energy crisis and many started issuing ridiculing statements, saying “he can’t survive without inventing a fresh crisis.”But here we are today, with the Albanian families and small businesses paying only 20% of the real electricity price and 80% of it being paid by the government through the state budget. By paying 80% of the electricity price for all households, and by paying a significant percentage of the electricity bill for all small businesses, we actually prevent the inflation rate from increasing rampantly. We can’t undo the rising inflation, but the reason why Albania has currently the lowest inflation rate in the region is because we haven’t increased the electricity price for the small businesses and these shops around here, which pay the same pre-crisis electricity rate and offer services without sharing the burden of increased prices. If we were to increase the energy prices on small businesses, which are the engine of the everyday economic life of the families, the small businesses would have been forced to transfer a part of this increase to your food and other basic commodities you buy daily.
The area of the cultivated agricultural land in Albania has doubled in the last six or seven years. The value of Albania’s agricultural exports is about to reach around 500 million euros from around 120 million euros worth of agricultural exports previously. Albania registered around 7 million visitors until September, an unimaginable figure, around 2 million more visitors than a year ago. Do all these figures show that Albania is a country where one can now earn a living? Is this a country where everyone is poisoned? Is this a country where everyone is being killed on the streets? No, because although gun homicides take place in Albania, just like in any country around the world, Albania has indeed recorded the lowest murder rate in the last 31 years and the average homicide rate over these years is about half of the killings before we took office.
Of course a lot remains to be done, because we have actually increased the opportunities, we have grown the country’s economy; we have also increased the salaries. And we haven’t delivered best on everything, we have definitely made mistakes, but if you compare today’s Albania with Albania a few years ago and claim that things have gone from bad to worse, it means that either you are totally blinded by hatred or to be unwilling to understand the truth.
Albania and Albanians are not criminals. It is them who have stained Albania’s image. It is exactly those who dared to abuse the mandate they were granted by the Albanian citizens to join votes with the delegations from Putin’s party against Albania, and not just against Kosova Liberation Army. Our path is just and our path is clear. United and only united with all of those trusting us, as well as with many others who don’t necessarily vote for us, but who all agree on the simple and significant fact that we are under the pressure of a war and just like we emerged stronger from the devastating earthquake and the pandemic, we will definitely recover and emerge again even stronger from this crisis, although being the hardest of all three.
Thank you very much!
