Prime Minister Edi Rama at meeting with 200 tour operators in the city of Berat:

Thank you very much for being here at this spectacular veranda, an accomplishment of a hard-working family that has transformed a derelict building into another point of reference for the everyday life and tourism here!

Prior to climbing up here, we walked through the building’s floors and witnessed a work executed with great finesse, and passion, as well as 40 rooms that add to Berat as part of a transformation process that started with some 13,000 visitors in 2013 to surge to over 110 000 visitors in 2018.

The visitor numbers have multiplied as Berat has become a magnet to visitors thanks to the government’s Urban Renaissance Programme, a largely anathematized and cursed project, which is not a decorative program, but an economic development program, social development, a program that enhances capacities of all areas of our country to attract more visitors and, simply put, to absorb more money spent in shops, restaurants, bars, guesthouses and hotels in Berat and elsewhere all over the country.

The today’s visit focuses exactly on this aspect. We just visited a newly-built guesthouse along the recently renovated street leading to Berat’s castle, which has been already spared the trouble and problems that were previously caused due to the total lack of sewerage network and degradation of cobblestones. In the meantime, over the past months we have seen an ever growing interest in investment projects to turn traditional private homes into guesthouses.

Together with the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Tourism, and the Ministry of Finance we are working on a new program designed to support projects to revitalize the old traditional houses and other traditional buildings of great cultural values and possibly turn them into guesthouses and other tourist attractions in order to:

Save the traditional homes from further degradation and destruction after many traditional houses mostly in Gjirokaster have been unfortunately destroyed over these years.

Boost economy of the families that practically inherit an incredible yet sleeping wealth, but struggle to make ends meet.

It is inexcusable. I have constantly stated since the very beginning when we took over the first term in office, just imagine that today it is no longer the time when it was difficult to imagine what other countries in the world, our neighbours would have been doing should they had cities like Berat and Gjirokastra. Would you provide even a single example – and I don’t mean countries like France and Italy with centuries-old traditions and development, but I mean the neighbouring countries like North Macedonia, Montenegro, Greece or in the war-torn Bosnia and Herzegovina – that such a wealth like Berat and Gjirokastra was consigned to oblivion for years.

Tell me a single example, the case of a traditional neighbourhood that symbolizes the past and the country’s history, yet where one can poor people and families who live through the remittances send by their children. It doesn’t exist such an example.

I have repeatedly stated and I would like to reiterate it today by putting emphasis on the fact that situation today is no longer similar to what it was four or five years ago as the turning point has come. We visited earlier the home of the parents of a young man who was still working and living abroad, but the two had returned home after living for 20 years in Italy and they are now working and generating income in their own house. Their house was there, but who was going to come back earlier? Berat was here too, but who was going to come back to Berat earlier? Driving from Lushnja to Berat was an adventure. Local residents were unwilling to come back to their homes, let alone foreign visitors.

But today we have made available a new financial support program, including grants and soft loans, for everyone who wishes to invest in traditional private homes both in Gjirokastra and Berat, as well as other traditional homes on the list of Monuments of Culture Institute. Such homes are a national wealth and not the wealth of individual families. Together with Ervin we were exploring ways to remove property tax on traditional houses with an investment plan and increase the property tax rate on the traditional houses that remain close and are kept hostage, as it is the case of this building here, a beautiful structure and one of the masterpieces of the traditional architecture that has been privatized back in 2014, but instead of being a tourist attraction it has crumbled into ruins.

On the other hand, we also explored investment opportunities following the demolition of the primary school building and freeing the whole space between the two mosques and the schoolyard to build an esplanade that leads to the foot of the castle and thus create a space where residents and young people can come together and host various events and build a set of steps similar to Rome’s Piazza Di Spagna. Meanwhile, whole spaces between the two religious tradition sites, the mosques that are being renovated, should be made available to the public. This is a wonderful area to create another important attraction.

The mosque’s fence and other buildings’ surrounding walls are a rudiment are product of the former communist regime. The iron fences around the churches and mosques were erected when these sites were seen merely as monuments of culture when religion was banned. No fences are built around churches or mosques all over the world. Churches and mosques are open to everyone and they are not to be guarded by fences. Fencing culture thrived with the collapse of communism with everyone building their own fences. I am highlighting this example to show how much remains to be done in terms of freeing, cleaning and lighting this whole miracle that is a wealth of everyone, not just a cultural heritage site inscribed on UNESCO list, but a treasure that generates revenues.

This hill should generate money for whole local population here. This very city should generate income for the city’s whole population. And if Berat residents currently living and working abroad return home and invest their savings in their private houses here to turn them into guesthouses and start agritourism businesses, their yearly income generated by such investments will be definitely higher than the income they earn while working abroad. They can continue living and working abroad, but they can generate more money by investing here.

We are currently at a stage to show that what we are doing means economy and it is not an embellishment. The beauty promotes and incites economy. Ugliness discourages economy. The fight against the beauty on behalf of the fight against the façade is indeed a war on economy. I and every one of you have seen beautiful countries facing economic problems, but I haven’t seen an ugly yet economically developed country. You can enter a beautiful home that may face economic problems, but there is no way that a rich family lives in a ruined home. This is impossible! It is pretty simple. This is the fight of ignorance and darkness against knowledge and light, while what we are doing is stimulating knowledge and light capacity.

Berat faces numerous problems today, yet it is incomparable with what it was yesterday. There was no hope yesterday. There’s hope for everyone now to see light and work hard to reach for the light.

This will be our objective for our mayors after winning the next term in office to combine projects on revitalization of the cities’ centres with the need to revitalize also the surrounding rural areas by developing agritourism sector. You have here a fantastic example. This is the example of a man who has built a success story from scratch, a success that will keep growing in the future. If Çobo were to emigrate, he would have earned some money, but he would never succeed in earning as much as he does today here.

To this end we have provided an incredible stimulus to agritourism by cutting the Value Added Tax rate to six percent only, just like it is the case of five-star hotels, and lower the profit tax rate to five percent only. The profit tax rate to be levied on agritourism businesses will be only five percent, even if their profits exceed the annual turnover of 140 million, which is completely possible in a well-structured agritourism business.

Another Çobo’s competitor is Nurellari. Foreign visitors say that Nurellary winery is a miracle. A miracle right at the heart of a country where others say: “We are leaving, because there is nothing left here.”

Indeed, nothing was to be found there before Nurellari built that miracle. But this is a reason to see and understand that everything is possible. With all these beauties, with all this inherited wealth, thanks to the ancestors in this area, with this climate, with all these people in the rural area who work, produce, export, there are all possibilities to make another step forward and create conditions to lift this entire area out of poverty.

This takes vision, willingness and persistence. It is true one might say “how beautiful” when looking at Çobo and Nurellari wineries, but you should also try to figure out the story, hard work and sacrifices it took to build them. I assure you that both companies will prosper more ten years later.

The new program the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Tourism are working on, in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance, provides for more fiscal incentives and direct financial support for everyone who will commit to revitalizing the traditional houses that are monuments of cultural heritage in Berat, Gjirokaster and other parts of the country. Another special cooperation program between the central government and the municipalities of Berat and Gjirokaster and the Albanian Development Fund will ensue. This program will bring about a tremendous transformation in these municipalities in the next four years.

The number of tourists who have visited Berat has increased to over 110 000 in four years, compared to only 13 000 visitors back in 2013. We should work to ensure that the visitor number grows to over 30 000 in next four years.

A most recent debate is underway. We have decided to build National Museum of Raki, Albania’s national spirit, in the city of Korça. Albania’s history was preserved at the National History Museum, the National Museum of Independence, the national museum of freedom and heroism only, but we plan to build the national museum of raki as part of the 100 Villages Program. All types of raki produced all over Albania will be showcased at an active museum with visitors being offered the opportunity to look at, touch and taste various types of raki. The museum will boost tourism. Meanwhile, we are also mulling plans to build an Albanian wine museum here in Berat and this would require a round-table meeting with wine makers all over the country.

Foreign visitors are eager to taste national spirits. The want to drink Albanian wine and try also raki. We will provide visitors this destination and promote this national spirit by showcasing it in a museum, just like the tea museum in Japan, one of the world’s most beautiful museums, where visitors are offered the opportunity to try and buy various kinds of tea.

Therefore, we will sit together with entrepreneurs who have introduced the wine tradition and other stakeholders and build a wine museum here in Berat. Thank you very much!

–I am the manager of this facility. Indeed, have been trusted with the task by my family. The object you see is thanks to my parents’ many years of work and I had to say the responsibility and the duty to manage and administer the entire investment of their lives. Many of you know quite well it has not been easy at all to build this structure. It all began back in 2012, when thanks to the then Mayor of Berat we were awarded the contract to renovate the object. We have tried to make sure that this facility reflects a modern style, combining it with the tradition. Also, we tried to maintain a continued contact with various tour operators in Berat. A week ago we met several of them but they are all hesitating and fear about the upcoming tourist season in the Berat area. Many advanced bookings are being cancelled, mostly from Italian tourists, most probably because of the current situation in the country.

A number of visitors from the Balkan countries have also called off their reservations, but we actually hope the situation will calm down a month later and therefore the situation will be much easier for us so that we host a large number of visitors.

Prime Minister Edi Rama:  Thank you very much! Indeed, I didn’t want to comment on this aspect today, but since you mentioned it, sadly enough what happens in politics it always has a bad impact. In this case, the only thing, the only segment that remains unharmed, although paradoxically it may sound, is the government and the ruling majority in terms of numbers. Everything else is badly affected. The government escapes unscathed. The ruling majority escapes unscathed, because it is not a wall you can hit and tear down, but it is a mandate granted by the majority of the voters and it can change only when the citizens think otherwise in the next elections.

Meanwhile, the political situation affects the household economy of everyone. A number of those who join protests that are orchestrated to materialized with violence are employees in the extremely politicized local administration. They are somehow a kind of the party-enterprise who are called to partake in a political chaos. But whoever else who earn their living through hard work and join such protests they are just hurting their own selves, because what you said is indeed the first outcome of such a situation.

Tourism is the main engine of this country’s economy and employment. As many as 20 000 people are employed during the tourist season.

A fall in the tourist number is a result of the fear due to the miserable images that such protests convey abroad and it is translated into a decrease in the money that enters the country. Tourists are not statistics, but they come here to spend money. The effect of such political convulsions to the consumer is immediate.

The consumption falls as families and visitors decide not to visit Berat, thinking that they should save more, fearing that harder times may come, although hard times come again no more, but it is something with a psychological effect.

So, in this aspect it is the country the one to bear the brunt of such situation. Of course, these kinds of convulsions, blockades, obstacles and shows of immaturity in relation to the obligations to the system we have chosen are not making it easy for us the process with our European partners to open the accession negotiations. Such convulsions provide those who reject opening of accession talks with the argument and the excuse to say: “You have not even a minimum of maturity. You still live in the stone age of politics, because you have yet to learn that mandates granted by citizens cannot be handed over as nobody else has done it. Various countries have experienced strange situations, but they have never resigned from their parliamentary mandates.” Those who don’t like us would say “you should pass the democracy internship first and then pretend to join us in our home.”

–I would like first to thank you for taking the trouble amid so many problems to deal with and the business problems in Berat. Much of what you already said represent the same strategy and vision we have as business as tourism is based on three pillars; investment, strategy and infrastructure. Regarding the strategy, many of the aspects you mentioned here are already being finalized as the business community and the government share common goal and the government policies are in line with the business objectives.

We want the road infrastructure to improve as many tour operators host large group of visitors and better roads are needed for our busses.

PM Edi Rama: Are you talking about the road behind the castle? The funding has been already allocated and the contract has been awarded, but we should first settle the compensation issues.

Well, I do not want to keep you any longer under the sun on this beautiful day. Therefore, I would like to thank each and every one of you for this opportunity and I assure you that we will attach utmost attention, will stay focused and will provide support to move forward with more rebirth projects both in the urban and rural areas in Berat.

 

Thank you!