Prime Minister Edi Rama’s remarks at Parliament’s plenary session:

I was following along the interpellation closely and I would like to start right where the debate between Mr. Hila dhe Minister ended, namely the tax-free fuel for farmers or fuel subsidy already granted by the government since last year in a bid to support farmers under a scheme that prevents use of fuel for other purposes as it has already been the case in the past, when the fuel subsidy schemes for farmers have failed and diverged from the original goal. The tax-free fuel scheme for farmers now is designed to provide direct support to farmers, production and transportation.

In this context, this social resistance package forwarded to Parliament as a normative act to win the lawmakers’ backing will significantly increase the government support for farmers by providing them full compensation for all the tax liabilities they pay and the quantity of fuel they consume. With the parliament’s approval the tax-free fuel scheme for farmers will allow for the disbursement of  $14 million, a significant amount of funding that addresses the needs already presented by farmers through their applications under the fuel subsidy scheme.

I would like to point out something that I deem quite important; the fact that the government subsidies for farm animals under the national agriculture support facility are now conditioned on a much higher number of animals than previously.

We are funding and we will continue to increase the government support and subsidies for all the key aspects of development of new agriculture through cooperation, creation of synergies, through creation of networks with contributors at various levels being involved, unlike the past collectivization in the common interest of socialism, but in their own personal interest as farmers will cultivate their own agricultural land.

The fact is that Albania’s agricultural exports rose 14% year on year in the first two months of 2022.

What I am saying is a reality in many regions across Albania, including Shkodra where we are witnessing an exponential growth in export volumes of the medicinal and aromatic plants.

Although big business is a reality in Albania’s agriculture today, we still lack the culture and the small business expansion in the urban areas.

Here we are today and the energy crisis and the power supply crisis is at a peak that the world compares to the 1974 energy crisis.

With this package, we can deliver our pledge not to increase the electricity price for the Albanian households. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Energy is conducting a survey on the wealthier households, not to reinstate the previous horrible categories that led us to total catastrophe and sent the country to the edge of abyss in 2013, but to find out whether a temporary division is put in place, with the wealthy families paying a higher electricity price. However, no other households will see the price of the electricity they consume increased as we will compensate the difference, which could double, treble or even see a four-fold increase.

The other aspect of the Package includes the government direct support for the needy and vulnerable social categories.

What matters most is that the electricity price will not change as long as we will be able to cope with it. Those who can afford more now should assume a heavier burden, whereas relief should be provided to the have-nots. 

Allow me to provide another important fact. A quick calculation, taking into account this bonus following the immediate indexation of the pensions under this normative act – including also the unchangeable year-end bonus for the retirees –  shows that pensions are actually increasing by 11.2%. So retired people will see their pensions increase by 11.2% at this phase of the crisis.

The Package also law on zero rates on personal income tax on monthly wages of 40,000 lek, the 50% cut in personal income tax on salaries up to 50,000 lek will enter into force two months earlier than projected.

The real wage is higher than what is actually declared and we are pretty aware of that and there is no doubt about that because the declared wages don’t fit with the consumption level.

Another important measure included in the social resistance package is the sovereign guarantee fund for importers, which provides importers of wheat, food items with sufficient liquidity so that they can create more supply stocks than they have created to date in order to cope with whatever lies ahead for the country.

This way we are providing them more liquidity opportunities so that importers can intensively order and procure more supplies at a time when the supply routes have been considerably narrowed. The minimum monthly wage is increasing and will keep increasing each year so that we can deliver on our programme projections for the minimum wage to be estimated at 38,000 to 40,000 lek by end of this term in office. It is our target for the minimum wage to amount to 40,000 lek, nevertheless in order for us to sound serious enough and not to make any promise that could turn out to be a false one in the end, the minimum wage target is 38,000 as we have publicly stated earlier.