The National Economic Council resumed its work with the first extended meeting of the year chaired by the Prime Minister Edi Rama, also the Council’s Chairman, opening a new chapter to breathe new life into a more open and constructive dialogue between the government and business community.

The Council will serve as a platform for stepped up dialogue, also establishing  certain sector committees, vital to receiving and making use of immense knowhow amassed by the business community about specific sectors.

In addition to National Economic Council officials, national and international personalities, representatives of business organizations and other guests attended the meeting, some of them via the online platforms.

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Prime Minister Edi Rama: Good afternoon! Before I go on commenting on the resumption of the National Economic Council’s work, I would like to primarily thank in English our friends that have generously accepted the invitation and joined us today via the online applications.

It is indeed something everyone acknowledges that last year was a good year for the Albanian economy and it was an immensely incredible year for Albanian tourism, with the revenue generated by tourism estimated at over 3 billion euros, whereas the number of visitors outnumbered local population, three times higher than Albania’s resident population and, on the other hand, this positive performance of the country’s economy lead to further decrease of the unemployment rate to 10.5%. 

On the other hand, last year also saw the highest figure in terms of the foreign direct investment, while more progress was made also in opening the national economy to the region and not only, but also to a wider region, involving a growing number of stakeholders, and economic activity further increased. The country’s trade balance improved further, with exports growing, whilst foreign investors showed greater interest in investing in Albania’s energy and tourism sectors.

I won’t go on further speaking about the current economic outlook, because we see this Council as a tool to jointly address various issues and problems, to jointly discuss ways how to respond to the challenges and how to interact with the private sector and independent institutions so that we make sure for the growth process to best make use of Albania’s untapped potential.

So, I think that other individuals around this table should go over details instead, starting with the State Minister for the Entrepreneurship, who bears special responsibility primarily in terms of what I already said, namely building most optimal synergies between the state institutions and the entrepreneurship and business community, identifying as adequately as possible all the problems the entrepreneurship encounters or that our development encounters, because of the rules, and the bureaucracy and certainly addressing with as much persistence as possible another very important aspect that has to do with the advanced process of European integration.

Albania has now already embarked on the accession negotiations with the European Union, a very demanding process, not only for the government, not only for the public institutions, but it is also very demanding for the entrepreneurship community itself.

So, I would like to again thank all the attendees, the honorary members who are attending the meeting via the online channels, Professor Hausman, Professor Roller, and a great friend of Albania Tahseen Sayed who, for a period of her career, has served as the World Bank Country Manager in Tirana.