The government of Albania has allocated an additional amount of $5 million to increase its tax-free oil support scheme to over 1.4 billion lek or $14 million for farmers throughout the country under the most recent Social Resistance Package.
For a second consecutive year, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural development planned funding to tax-free oil subsidies in a bid to support development of the country’s agriculture sector. Farmers cultivating wheat, corn, maize, beans, sunflower, oats, rye, aromatic-medicinal plants, etc benefit from tax-free oil under the government’s subsidies scheme.
Prime Minister Edi Rama met with local farmers and beneficiaries under the tax-free oil scheme in the village of Jube, Durres municipality, to discuss the measures as part of the government’s social resistance package designed to cope with the rising prices and energy crisis.
The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Rural Frida Krifca, the Minister of Economy and Finance Delina Ibrahimaj, as well as the Mayor of Durres Emiriana Sako attended the meeting.
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Good afternoon! Thank you very much for your presence and for joining us today although it is a day off.
Together with the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Minister of Finance, and Durres Mayor, we are here to briefly discuss the situation, the Social Resistance Package, as well as the sector you directly contribute to, namely agriculture.
A lot of debates and discussions are going on and controversial opinions over agriculture are being expressed today and for some time now, as some speak out relying on the reality of facts regarding agriculture, while some simply express their opinions as outsiders and about realities often negatively painted by the media, in the sense that the media sometimes tends to provide only negative news reports and this is what they are somehow tasked with or they do so because of scant, or little or no knowledge about agriculture.
There is really no comparison between today’s agriculture and its situation seven or eight years ago. There is no comparison in this aspect. Undoubtedly, the Albanian agriculture sector faces problems and has its shortcomings and farmers definitely encounter many difficulties and the agriculture sector still faces a serious challenge, namely the challenge of mindset that is somehow hampering the sector’s progress in various areas across the country. However, the mentality and farmer’s approach have totally changed in other parts of the country that are clearly making progress in terms of development of agriculture.
By mentality I mean the trend of working separately in fragmented land plots.
One cannot progress in agriculture by thinking and working individually. Progress can be only made if forces are joined and this should of course not be done like it was the case in the past, when farmers were forced to work collectively, but instead farmers should now decide on their will to join forces and their fragmented land plots and coordinate efforts, the crops they should grow, the same commodity they need to grow over large land areas and ways how to jointly sell their produce. This would be the key to the farmers’ success in all the areas where intensive farming and agriculture are underway and where exports are growing.
Whereas farmers can end up throwing away rotten crops and products in the areas where they operate individually in fragmented smaller land plots, as they produce smaller quantities and find it tough to sell their products or decide to sell them at a very low or cheap price. This is not the case with the united farmers as they sell quality products together at satisfactory prices.
On the other hand, I would also like to highlight two or three facts.
The area of cultivated land in Albania has doubled compared to seven or eight years ago. This fact alone would suffice for everyone to realize that Albania’s agriculture has made a huge leap forward and hasn’t absolutely moved backward. On the contrary, the country’s agriculture has an added huge potential for further development.
Second fact is certainly connected to the first one that the doubled cultivated agricultural land can be clearly demonstrated through the increased exports and the current export-import ratio, as the agricultural exports are rising steadily and sustainably. It was just a few years ago when the export-imports ratio was 1 to seven, with one unit representing exports and seven representing imports. This ratio is 1 to 3 currently, which means that local agriculture production has significantly increased as the arable and cultivated land area has expanded twice as much and production has grown.
The third fact is about the increased agricultural production and growing exports. Albania’s agricultural exports have risen to about half a billion of dollars from $120 or 125 million including the fishing sector.
The value of the country’s agricultural exports is estimated to be over $500 million and it is our ambition to increase exports to over one billion dollars by the end of this term in office. However, the area you live in was actually severely affected by the earthquake, which forced us to totally alter the development plans and instead deal with quake effects and support reconstruction.
As we make our own plans and keep working as part of our efforts and ambitions to progress and move forwards, an earthquake hits the country, followed by the pandemic. And as if the first two weren’t enough we now have to deal with the effects of a war that is being fought elsewhere, but whose impact is being felt here and throughout the world as today’s global economy is strongly interconnected. The impact of this war is being felt in Australia too, which has nothing to do with other continents, yet prices of commodities went up in Australia as well precisely because of this war in Ukraine and one should be really determined and willing not to see, listen and understand, but instead keep saying the war has nothing to do with us as whole world is facing this situation as it is not about a conflict between two neighbourhoods. One of the world’s largest trading powers, Russia has waged a war. Russia is a big trading power for the fact that it is home to a considerable part of natural resources, oil, gas and other important raw materials, including iron and corn in Europe and a wider region. And Russia has invaded Ukraine, also a leading producer and exporter of corn, as well as iron and other important raw materials. Two large trading powers are involved in a war, but they also represent two important markets and are having a huge impact on the whole world. As we speak, a good part of major public and private investment projects have been temporarily suspended. Construction projects have been suspended, because the price of iron has tripled. The reason why public investment projects have been grounded is because the contracts with builders of Llogara Tunnel and other important infrastructure projects were signed when the price of iron was three times cheaper than today. Iron is an essential material in construction projects. And companies claim they can’t go on with the contract implementation, not because of our failure or fault, but because of a force majeure, namely the ongoing war which is a clause that is included in contracts to remove liability for natural and unavoidable catastrophes. They say they won’t be able to enforce the contract according to the agreed terms, because they would go bankrupt. What are we supposed to do now? Should we increase funding or suspend these projects until this situation is over?
But many cut it short by claiming that we should give up and cancel all these projects for good and instead provide cash handouts to people.
It is easy for everyone to call on the government to abandon investment projects, but such a decision would make thousands of people jobless and would deprive the state budget from millions in revenues that would be collected from these investments.
Third, if we were to call off these investment projects, such a decision would send the country into a spiral of economic downturn, because investments can grow the economy. For us to increase wages and pensions we need to increase revenues first but we can do so by growing the economy only. But the economy can grow through investments.
If everyone were to refuse to work, stop digging and cultivating the land, this would lead to collapse. This is also the case with the state and the state budget. The state would collapse if the state budget would fail to collect revenues and instead just provide funds for expenditure? This is elementary logic.
Meanwhile, you should all keep in mind the fact that no other country has done what we are already doing. I came across news stories showing that France has provided compensation, but not a complete one. We are granting full compensation for the electricity bill. Many claim that Albania should not face a power crisis as the country has been blessed with rich water resources. Yes, it is true that God has blessed Albania with rich water resources, but the country’s domestic electricity generation depends on hydro power and rainfall. In other words, electricity generation depends on rainfall, snowfall, water inflows and rising water level at the main dams of hydropower stations.
This is the third consecutive year when rainfall has been insufficient and this means that water level is dropping to the technical point where the turbines must be stopped.
Power generation should now stop, because if we are to totally discharge the water from the dam, the country would collapse. There is a technical level when electricity generation should stop. But if generation is suspended we would face power shortages and therefore we would be forced to import electricity at mind boggling prices.
We have embarked on this path for some months now and what we should all know is that this is just the beginning of March. Crisis has just started to show and send its initial troubling signals since the end of September. It is early March and a long dry summer lies ahead and this means we would have to use extensive state budget money to purchase electricity at extremely high prices so that household consumers and businesses face no power shortages.
I agree that costs are going up and this is because of the overall crisis. However, would any of you agree that the value of electricity bill increases twice as much? The electricity price and bill could even record a twofold, a threefold and even a fourfold increase in certain cases. Would any of you accept this?
Fuel is also an important commodity for everyone. Cars and vehicles are definitely important, but most importantly you should use off-road diesel fuel for your tractors and other agricultural equipment and not for your cars. It is easy for anyone to call on the government to remove fuel taxes, but we would be unable to provide compensation to the rest of the people and categories if we were to ever make such a decision.
We have made our choice. We won’t remove taxes on fuel, because such taxes affect car and vehicle owners only. A car owner means he can afford to pay for it.
The fuel taxes affect commuters and that’s why the government has decided to support public transportation service so that no increased fares and ticket prices are applied. So, in order for the urban transportation operators not to increase fares for commuters the government will provide 100 lek in subsidies for each litre of fuel used by public transportation buses.
The fuel taxes affect farmers. That is why the government has allocated an additional amount of $5 million to increase the tax-free oil scheme for farmers to 1.4 billion lek or $14 million. They will be provided a quantity of fuel to compensate for the rising price. The applications for support under the tax-free oil scheme are already underway. The application process will be postponed until March 30. We will provide tax-free fuel to all applicants who meet a set of simple criteria.
Retired people do not own cars, they do not pollute the environment and therefore they don’t have to pay a circulation tax and the carbon tax. However, we can’t send a twofold or a threefold increased electricity bill to retirees. The same goes for the disabled people, tetraplegics and paraplegics who don’t own and drive cars, but they can’t pay increased electricity bills just because some call on us to remove fuel taxes on the motorists. Anyone owning a car or a vehicle certainly can afford more. It is as simple as that.
The cabinet members, including me, other state officials and MPs who use cars will see their fuel quantity halved and they would have to pay themselves if they want to use their cars beyond the limit granted by the state.
So, it is a simple concept: he who has more, he will make a little more sacrifice than the others. And this is definitely a sacrifice that should be made. Definitely, war causes all of these. Yesterday I met with the chief executive officer of France’s Total, one of the world’s largest oil, gas and energy companies. The company representatives are on a visit to Albania as they are seeking to invest in Albania, and he clearly told me: “The hit to the global oil market is a result of the extreme uncertainty triggered by the war. It is not the oil production that has decreased, but uncertainty has gone up.” All countries with oil reserves have raised the price.
If the war ends and uncertainty decreases, the fuel prices would fall immediately, because that is how the world economy works today.
In the meantime, company Shell is carrying out important oil and gas explorations and they have discovered gas reserves in Shpirag and feasibility study is underway to see whether this discovery is financially feasible for them, as they have conducted very deep drills and it is about large quantities of gas that would really change Albanian economy. However, it has yet to be tested whether it would be totally profitable as the drilling and extraction cost is really very high. Italian company ENI is also conducting explorations, together with two other leading companies. France’s company Total is equally large and a leading company yet they are not interested in Albania’s oil reserves.
Yesterday we discussed projects on solar power and wind power, hydropower, liquefied-gas fuelled thermal power from offshore platforms, and offshore solar panels. However, they ruled out any project on Albania’s oil reserves. They showed no interest in Albania’s oil as it is viscous oil and the refining cost is extremely high and producing diesel or gasoline costs dearly and it is more expensive than importing it from the other side of the world.
How would we explain this to those who claim that “Albania is rich in oil reserves and power reserves.” Our oil is not like as they claim it to be. “The refinery is state-owned. Building a new refinery would cost a lot and the government cannot afford constructing it.
Second, building another Ballsh-like refinery here would turn out to be catastrophic. We had the refinery, but no investor took over it since refining our oil was a very expensive process. These are facts everyone should bear in mind.
Before I give the floor to the colleagues attending this meeting, I would like to reiterate that the government will do whatever it takes to deal with this huge challenge befalling us again. We will do everything by primarily granting support for those most in need, farmers and other social categories. However, we should take prudent steps since nobody knows how long this crisis will last.
An extraordinary NATO summit will take place for the first time ever this Wednesday and it remains to be seen what decisions will be made by the Alliance.
We don’t know how long the crisis would last and the course it would take. A ceasefire hopefully can be reached sooner, God willing, but there may not be too. Negotiations are underway, but no solution is in sight. However, a ceasefire wouldn’t mean the end of the war. There could be reached and observed a ceasefire until a final agreement is reached. But peace negotiations can fail. The ceasefire can last several months or even more, but nobody knows for sure.
That’s why we should be mentally and psychologically well prepared to resist. This is resistance and that’s why we have told fuel suppliers, wholesale and retail operators, as well as wholesale food suppliers that this is not the moment for them to reap benefits and boost their earnings and profits. This is all about resisting and fighting. The companies should not definitely operate at losses, because they would go bankrupt and therefore we would run out of supplies and this shouldn’t happen. However, they should do something more than others.
We can ask neither retired people nor farmers to make sacrifices. We can’t ask commuters, people with disabilities and needy households to make sacrifices. Thank you!
Before I give the floor to Ani, I would like to highlight something for everyone to understand how the war is having its impact here. The price of urea has gone up, as you already know. However, what I found out is that being uninformed is absolutely the most natural thing and one cannot know everything. One can be blamed for his or her ignorance when you know nothing about a certain subject, yet you still keep speaking about it.
In my capacity as Prime Minister I have had to learn a lot of things I didn’t know previously and anytime something impresses me and I don’t know it, I just simply ask experts about it and consult with the official data. And given the high number of complaints over the urea price I also ask for possible solutions.
Around 80% of urea is produced in Ukraine and the price increase happens for two main reasons.
The first reason is that production and trade have already stopped as the country is being attacked militarily.
Prolongation of the ongoing crisis may cause us to face fuel and oil shortages, power and urea shortages. Why? This may happen as the markets may run out of these commodities.
As we speak, the electricity price at international markets has now jumped to 550 euros from 52 euros just a year ago. However, the biggest problem is that the international markets may run out of this commodity.
In order for us to secure sufficient electricity supply we had to access a number of addresses and international markets. This is how the ongoing war there is having its impact on us here. And the impact of war is being felt everywhere even in far-away Australia. What has Australia got to do with Ukraine? Prices have soared in Australia too, because it is a war taking place in a vast swath of territory. Just take a look at the map and you will figure out the vastness of Russia’s territory. The same goes for Ukraine, although a tiny country compared to Russia. However, Ukraine also covers a huge territory and has a population of over 40 million people, one of the largest countries in Europe. And you should all know that large quantities of raw materials with a huge impact on the international markets are produced and manufactured in these territories and this is how the war is affecting the whole world.
Every country throughout the world is affected by this war.
Second, I would also like to underline that we can decide to raise wages at a higher rate than previously, we can decide to increase pensions, but to do that we need to change our taxation policies, and we would have to increase taxes. And whoever claims that we have increased taxes, he is unaware of what he is talking about. Whoever claims that “Edi Rama and his government are strangling people with the burden of taxes, they simply don’t know what they are talking about, because Albania today is the only country in the region, in Europe applying zero profit tax and zero VAT rate on over 95, 000 small businesses throughout the country. They used to pay a 10% flat profit tax rate and 20% VAT rate, while zero tax rates are applied today. The government also pays the electricity bill for the small businesses, just like the households.
Albania applies the lowest personal income tax rate in the region, namely zero personal income tax on monthly wages up to 40,000 lek, 7% on monthly wages of 50,000 lek. Albania also has the lowest social and health contributions. Since people tend and like to draw comparisons between Albania and the rest of the world, everyone should know that unlike Albania housing taxes are applied everywhere around the world, where people also pay rents. The housing tax rates depend on the floor area and the living area, but no such taxes are paid in Albania’s rural areas.
A land value tax is also in force, but nobody pays it. Nobody also pays for the irrigation water. Why have we tolerated collection of such taxes? We have done so in order to provide people more opportunities so that they can save, grow and strengthen.
Small business is steadily growing and strengthening and this is also thanks to our government’s zero or low tax policy. But the state budget would be unable to fund any project or any sector if we were to cut and remove more taxes, including fuel taxes.
It is true we have increased taxes on big business and the construction permits that make up for the largest share of revenue collections. But they are accusing us of siding with the so-called oligarchs. Who are these oligarchs? To put it bluntly, there are no oligarchs in Albania. Rich or wealthy individuals or the construction companies used to pay a 2% tax for a construction permit, whereas they now pay 8% and this 8% tax rate is actually translated into around 6 million euros in revenues for the Tirana municipality. They used to pay a 10% profit tax and they now pay 15%. Tax rates on rich people are the highest in the region.
This is a matter of choice. This is what we have chosen. We have chosen to provide as much as possible relief to the households and individuals, we have chosen to relieve the fiscal burden on small businesses so that they can grow and breathe freely.
If we were to impose all these sorts of taxes already in place in other countries we would certainly be able and would afford increasing wages at a higher rate than previously. And we will certainly keep increasing salaries and the next salary hike decision will be made this June. Is this the right thing to do?
If we were to increase social insurance contributions we would definitely be able to increase pensions. Are those complaining over pensioners ready to pay more in social insurance contributions? They are definitely not ready. One of those charlatans said: “We want democracy for the freedom of speech, but not for the free market economy.”
In other words, they want to talk as much as they can, but they are unwilling to work and instead want the government and the state to do everything for them. Let’s hold a referendum and choose the communist regime again. Is this what they are asking for? This would then be the case for me to leave for good. Let’s go back to the communist regime as communists are still among us here. They are embodied in the form of a dead man who thinks he is still alive.
But we have decided to embark on this path, on the path to democracy and free market economy since in the’90s. There are farmers who plant wheat on over 200 hectares of land and there are others begging them for a job. This is how it is now. This is the system we chose. Do you want everyone that everyone in the society receives equal shares of the benefits derived from labor as the communism idea is? We can do so. All it takes is just a referendum. And we can build a communist regime with everyone having the right and the freedom to speak, but nobody is obliged to work. The government has the duty to listen to everyone speaking and working for everyone else who doesn’t wish to work.
You listened to us very patiently and I would like to thank you all for this.
I would also like to add something about the cleaning campaign.
First and foremost, everyone knows that pollution, the heavy-littered beaches with solid waste and trash has been a very serious problem for Durres. You know quite well the situation was horrible in terms of the mass and daily pollution of the area because of the landfill in Porto Romano. The urban waste dumpsite in the area of Porto Romano had for years become a hotbed of environmental emergency, a source of pollution with irreparable damage to land and to the health of the population. But from an area of distemper it has now been transformed into an ecological park. We addressed this environmental emergency very quickly and a great ecological park is now in place there. But the waste collection has also been a serious issue, which is now being tackled. Why am I referring to this aspect? I am highlighting it because everyone offers us their magical recipes, urging us to abandon everything. They call them incinerators, but is it actually not a matter of incinerators, but it is about thermal power plants, which have also eliminated pollution and waste in the whole of this territory and have set reference points to keep going and transport waste there.
We also addressed transportation and treatment of the waste at Porto Romano to the waste management plant in Sharre, Tirana. How did we solve it? We solved it without asking the Mayor to increase local taxes on residents, without asking the municipality to increase funding, but the government did instead.
We transformed the area from a waste dumpsite into an ecological park and tackled the waste treatment problem. Yet there are people telling us and accusing us “this is how you waste money.” And they claim that this project cost is estimated at 43 million euros, but this is not true at all. I avail myself of this opportunity to underline this is an important project and great work that has been done for all local residents. And such great and wonderful work has nothing to do with alleged abuses and profits certain individuals may have gained by taking advantage of the office. Whoever does so will definitely face justice.
Second, as far as collection of locally grown produce is concerned, one of the novelties introduced by the Minister of Agriculture is construction of new storage, but also processing and production centres in collaboration with local government authorities and the community, without having to wait for private operators to collect your products. Wheat producers are attending this meeting and they will establish a joint association together with local government institutions. Both central and local governments will provide funding. The collection and storage centres will be built and a representative or an administrator is appointed. A total of 5 collection centres will be built under this model first. The government will provide the largest share of funding and local government will cover a part of the funding, including a modest contribution by all of those who would decide to join the association. However, this model will totally depend on the association, because the government will not build state-owned collection and storage centres. This is a process you will have to and be tasked with handling in collaboration with local government authorities.
There is another element too and everyone should understand this. This is the structure of the free market economy itself. This is the devil inside capitalism. That’s why regulatory measures are needed, because capitalism has the devil inside it, just like any other system does and which are worse, because democracy is not the best but there is nothing better than democracy.
As far as the rising prices of the previously stored goods and commodities, one shouldn’t see it as something that is inexistent, because the market works according to the supply and demand ratio, the majority over the minority and security over insecurity.
There are businesses that speculate with the consumer prices. We were just informed that two filling stations have violated the war rule and therefore inspectors and police will act and take the necessary measures for violating the war rules. Such inspections and police operations would be scandalous on the state’s part if carried out in normal conditions, but under war conditions these are scandals committed by businesses that have violated the price we have jointly set and therefore they will face consequences. This is what others would face if they would dare play with what we all have jointly agreed upon. We are not dictating prices, but a majority of the operators have agreed on setting certain wholesale and retail prices. And nobody would be allowed to set higher prices of at least five basic items. We are not asking for fixed prices on every item, but on just five of them. Businesses have increased prices of creams and this has nothing to do with the war in Ukraine. The war in Ukraine has definitely its impact on the prices of basic raw materials, namely the iron, wheat, cereals and urea and other products mainly produced in Russia or Ukraine, but this has nothing to do with the creams and other products that are imported from Italy and other European countries? One might say the fuel price and transportation costs have gone up. This is a reflection of the alarm that has gripped the markets. Everything would start to go back to normal and stabilize as another mechanism will start working and that is the free market mechanism, where you may set a high price as you would please to do so, but nobody would buy your expensive products and instead would buy them somewhere else. This way I believe things would start to normalize. Things will never be the same again, yet they will normalize. The war should end first and the international markets calm down so that things can go back to normal again.
– It is now the seeding and the planting time, while we are still discussing the tax-free oil supply for farmers. We have applied under the already established scheme, but we don’t know when our applications will be approved.
PM Edi Rama: The first step we need to take is to verify and take stock of all large land areas where crop planting will take place now. We will also create an inventory of the sorts of crops due to be planted and subsidies will be provided before April 7 to all farmers planting especially wheat and cereals on over one hectare of land area. All farmers planting such large areas are entitled to benefit subsidies and tax-free oil, because they won’t be able to plant their agricultural land if no support is granted. Each and every one of you will definitely receive compensation for fuel and subsidies on time so that you can keep planting and harvesting your crops.
– I have planted wheat and I want to plant cereals on around 62 hectares of land area.
PM Edi Rama: I am specifically talking about planting on large agricultural land areas. All these areas will be verified and farmers will benefit from tax-free oil and subsidies for planting cereals in particular. The government will allocate funds in the first week of April. This is because we can’t keep emphasizing that a war is going on and let people wait for endless procedures to complete. We have to speed up procedures.
–I also own a small wheat and cereal processing factory.
PM Edi Rama: This makes you respected. This is the best case to show everyone watching us now to see for themselves how joining forces means success. And this is not a propaganda slogan, but it is a fact and I am convinced that members of the families that have made available their family land plots are all employed in your collective farm or farm enterprise. Those not working can rent out their land and everyone can earn income by joining forces.
– This area has been under irrigation water, but the irrigation system is no longer working as previously. This area was known for high yields per hectare once. As such, I think more priority should be given to this area.
PM Edi Rama: You are telling me this is a high yielding agricultural area and I believe it although I have never been to this area previously. However, I think this land area was a high-yielding one when no dwellings were built on it and nothing else but a vast land area. All these families have their own fragmented land areas, while previously you used to work together collectively and there was nobody offering land out for rent, there were no merchants who used to increase the price of urea as they wished and no taxes were paid back then. It is a completely different situation today.
-Most of farmers face a major problem, as you also mentioned, namely the lack of rain or the prolonged drought periods and therefore we encounter difficulties in terms of irrigating our land areas. We have been trying to irrigate the agricultural land, yet an investment is needed to rehabilitate and make the irrigation system fully operational. We are lucky enough that the Erzen River flows through this area and a minor investment is needed to make the irrigation system fully operational. An irrigation canal also flows here behind our back. We have been working with local government authorities and the Mayor in particular to adopt drainage canals for irrigation.
PM Edi Rama: You mean there are existing irrigation systems or there are no such systems at all in this area?
-We have rehabilitated a part of the drainage canals, around 80% of them through the municipality assistance last year and we will use a part of them as irrigation systems next year too.
PM Edi Rama: Thank you and I promise we will visit the area soon again and together with wheat producers will discuss the issue of irrigation in concrete terms. I will visit the area with the Minister of Agriculture and the Mayor of Durres again and together we will explore plans and possible investment projects to address irrigation of agricultural land in this area and what segments should be added in order to enhance capacity of the existing irrigation system, as well as ways to speed up efforts and take the storage and collection centre project forward by figuring out how feasible such a centre would be.
In the meantime, I promise that within the first week of April the government will disburse funding under the tax-free oil scheme for all farmers all over the country, who have planted wheat on a certain land area, starting with you. We will sit together with the Finance Minister so that the funding is disbursed as soon as possible, while Durres Mayor will immediately deploy relevant local institutions to verify the cultivated land areas. There will be no need for re-verification actions will be needed for the cultivated land areas already verified last year, but the process will be carried out for the first-time applicants only. This way we will be able to avoid the part of procedures that would delay disbursement of funds for farmers as we want this process to complete by the first week of April.
I will closely follow the issue of agricultural inputs, but you should all know that prices of inputs are going up. I know this is the case. However, everyone should consider the rising prices as “the bombs” hitting us? Thank God we are not being shelled and thank God no real war wounds are being inflicted upon us and the only bombs hitting us are the soaring prices. We will do everything. However, do you know what we are doing? We are seeing prices going up, because these are all imported goods and not domestic products, even though the fuel prices have gone up in the oil producing countries too. The United States produces oil and decided to ban Russian gas that represented just one percent of its supplies. The U.S. is an oil producer, but the fuel price at the pump is the highest. We see the prices and we see how prices are soaring. And this is not something happening in Albania only. There are individuals who also highlight the difference in wages.
First of all, the comparisons we draw with the region should be based on the amount of money we save from the monthly wage, in terms of how much do citizens in the neighbouring countries pay in taxes and how much do Albanians pay. Second, the international market doesn’t take this into account. The international market doesn’t take into account the wages in France, in the Netherlands, in North Macedonia or in Albania.
The price of urea in international markets is the same and therefore the impact of the price is the same. We all know this and we all have learned it and don’t know why this is a recurring theme here in Albania, although we are now used to the fact that the price of bread and fuel registered a tenfold increase overnight, because of the system-change when we embraced another system, the one with imports and exports.
We have to keep in mind that the increase, no matter how high it was, is not that these people went crazy here. We will see them now for the part of those who would tend to speculate with prices.
This is the system and this has been settled once and for all.
-The road stretching behind your back leads to an 800-ha agricultural land area. One cannot even walk to reach this area let alone drive a vehicle.
PM Edi Rama: I promise we will be visiting your area soon and discuss all these problems and ways to boost support for farmers in this high-yielding agricultural area.
Thank you very much!
