Prime Minister Edi Rama: Good afternoon!

It is a great pleasure to be here together with a long-time friend; a friend I have had the privilege of knowing thanks to his very strong ties with the Albanian community in New York. After several repeated promises, the Mayor of New York, Mr. Adams, has finally come to Albania to visit the country, to see firsthand a place he has surely heard much from his Albanian friends, as well as from me, and of course to discuss together what we can do related to tourism.

Given that the mayor has played a key role in establishing several direct air routes from New York to other destinations, we are now exploring the possibility of adding extra push to our ongoing efforts to establish a direct flight with New York. Since he is also very interested in technology, he is eager to meet Diella as well.

Mayor of New York City, Eric Adams:

Thank you so much Prime Minister for your friendship and for allowing me to display here what I displayed in New York often and that’s the Albanian flag we like to say.

When you think about it here in this city twenty five years ago you had less than a hundred working street lights and now twenty five years later under this leadership you’re seeing a thriving community and city,  moving in the right direction from the lack of street lights to having an AI minister understanding the role that artificial intelligence is going to play in the future and the development of cities.

I wanted to come here after several conversations in New York City where we have one of the largest if not the largest Albanian population outside of Albania. I want to come here and learn more about the technology of how this Prime Minister has been able to watch the evolution of this city and country. I wanted to come here and talk about tourism and see how do we assist in utilizing not only my next few months in office but even after office of getting a direct flight from New York City to Albania.

It helps the constituents there and as well as it helped those who are here in the country. I want to talk about tourism, a multi-billion-dollar industry in New York City. Sixty-five million tourists last year visited New York, and I want to increase that number coming from this country as well. I want to talk about how we deal with the migration of the global migration issue across the entire globe and able to sit down with those who deal with not only the Minister of Defense but how this country continues to be safe and allow people to enjoy the beauty of this country.

So, we engage with many of the deputy ministers that had extensive portfolios to see how we create a symbiotic relationship and watch how we use some of the products that are produced here and the products that are produced in New York City to engage in trade.

It is imperative that we share three important things. One, business. I’m going to encourage no matter who the mayor in the years to come to look towards this country for business opportunities and vice versa.

Two, culture. It is imperative that we understand your history as we share our history and our young people finally engage with each other. I want to invite young people to visit America, and I want to invite young people of America to come and visit Albania.

We must unite to deal with the challenges that we are facing globally. With the introduction of internet and communications it is clear that we no longer live in these separate environments based on our geographical locations across the globe. We share the same interests, the same concerns and we share most importantly the same destiny.

So, there was much speculation about why I was here and what we were doing here. It was for a simple reason. To say hello to a friend and learn from a friend and build a relationship with a friendship that would not allow our oceans or seas to divide us. We will learn from each other. We will grow together as we are doing in New York, so too you’re doing here in this amazing country with a rich history.

So, thank you my friend for allowing me to come and spend time with you.