Local farmers in the agricultural areas in the central region of Elbasan gathered in a conversation with the Prime Minister Edi Rama on Friday as part of his tour around the country in an open dialogue on agriculture, the sector absorbing in 2022 the largest funding in the last 30 years and thanks to the government support and the hard work of farmers the area of agricultural greenhouses has tripled, helping to significantly increasing agriculture exports to the previously unexplored international markets.
* * *
Hello everyone and thank you very much for your hospitality!
I am very happy to be with you here at this quite tough moment, with everything being under the pressure of the ongoing war in Ukraine, which, thank God, hasn’t reached us with bombs being tossed over our heads, but it has triggered a high inflation rate and inflation is a monster that although physically invisible, we feel its effects any time we reach for our pockets to buy something, because its impact is being felt on the price of every commodity, food and other vital products.
However, on the other hand, we are happy to be here in Elbasan, actually just like everywhere else all over Albania for the sake of truth, but Elbasan now has a new path towards agricultural development opened. Prior to coming here, we visited a new amazing reality, significant and an exemplary model to be followed by everyone.
Albanian agriculture today, despite the ongoing European and global crisis and despite the difficulties, including the rising prices and costs, is in its heyday if compared to where we started from in terms of production and in terms of the volume of the country’s agricultural exports. And I tell everyone that this hasn’t happened 50 years ago but just 6 or 7 years ago, when you could encounter people on the side of the roads with their locally grown produce in an effort to sell them to the passerby. And this was the case everywhere all over the country.
Of course, we now need more quality markets offering products at more reasonably cheaper prices and we are working on this under the new programme. According to this programme, as the Minister of Agriculture already announced, five initial farmer markets will be built soon – they won’t be private ones that could decide very high prices, but markets totally available to the farmers. The municipality and local government officials have a role to play in this aspect. Local government has a central role –and I don’t mean Elbasan municipality only – but it plays only 5% to 10% of that important role.
We have been facing an issue and we still face the oil price issue, but the tax-free oil supply to farmers has been has increased multiple times, precisely because we have pursued a policy devised to primarily support the worst-hit sectors due to the current situation amid the this war inflation triggered by Vladimir Putin and not by the Socialist Party. This is because we can’t completely avoid the impact, yet we need to dodge a good part of it and the worst blow is being felt at the electricity bill, which actually none of the families and small businesses are coping with as we have set a financial shield so that the pre-war electricity rate remains intact.
We now plan to take another step as we are mulling other ways to support farmers through the excise-free oil scheme, but in the meantime we will verify without wasting time and denying nothing to farmers, as the support scheme will definitely translate into larger quantities of production. In the meantime we will prevent potential abuses with individuals who may apply for excise-free oil claiming to be farmers, but using it for other purposes instead.
Not only that, to further strengthen this financial shield, we have allocated a significant amount to support the worst-hit social categories. We have re-indexed pensions twice this year with the pension payment increased by around 10%. We will provide a significant year-end bonus to cope with the situation in early December. No country can prevent inflation from rising, yet we should ease the burden on the population by employing every measure and everything we can afford.
Likewise, the government has doubled the economic assistance for female family heads with two or more children. The government has also approved a two-fold increase for the families under the social and economic welfare scheme, whereas monthly salaries have been increased in a horizontal way for everyone.
Do you know whose salaries have registered the highest increase during this difficult situation? The ones to see highest pay rises are university lecturers, 7% by the government and 8% under the university autonomy respectively, with a combined increase of 15%. No other sector, despite our desire, has seen a 15% pay rise. This is a significant salary hike at this time of crisis and war.
We have drafted the next year’s state budget. To all of those who claim that things have gone bad, and indeed things should actually be much better, but if compared to the year 2013 when we took office, a year later in 2014 we had the state budget that is actually half of the budget we are drafting for 2023. In a nutshell, the state budget has doubled. Why have we doubled the budget? We have done so because the economy has grown and expanded and if otherwise we wouldn’t have sufficient revenue to do it.
It is our goal of course to do a lot more and by this I am not implying we are doing great, but on the contrary here are what we can do and the reasons why we can do a lot more.
Unquestionably, in this effort, if compared to the past and those governing in the past, who are moving heaven and earth – imagine they are accusing police of killing a young man, while the State Police have in a correct and serious way suspended the individuals so that they are not involved in any process and the relevant Agency, namely the forensic police are conducting the whole investigation. However we will wait for the autopsy results and the forensic police report and so on and so forth.
They are levelling accusations that I am allegedly a collaborator of Serbia, but when it comes to defending Kosovo where they should do so, they side with Russia instead. How can one possibly explain that Russian lawmakers and Albania’s Democratic Party lawmakers join their votes, whereas the Socialist Party MP refuses to vote? They allege over oligarchs, but address to the Constitutional Court to defend exactly the oligarchs.
We are here to acknowledge that we are aware of the urge for us to be really together today, with everyone doing his or her part and we will keep doing our part to the end. We will ultimately do whatever we can and it takes, as we actually did also at the end of September, when the 800 kWh consumption limit was imposed, although it doesn’t affect the majority of the families, exactly because we were provided an opportunity. Rains started, although not in sufficient quantities, citizens started to save energy and these provided us with the opportunity to postpone until November enforcement of the new electricity rates for anyone consuming more than 800 kWh a month. We are now exploring these two components on a daily basis, namely the water level at the main hydropower plants and the energy saved by the consumers. We should save energy so that we can secure energy. This is the fact. And we want to create every opportunity, no matter how slight, so that we can immediately provide it to the people and so that we can provide them relief. I am really concerned about those in difficulties and in need and we are doing our utmost every day. We are not perfect machines; we are doing whatever to mitigate the effects of this situation and the crisis that has gripped the whole world.
This is a masterpiece and I would call on everyone who can afford renting a land area to return back home and invest in Albania. I would call on everyone to invest in rural areas, build small agribusinesses and all sorts of other businesses, build greenhouses, farms and I assure everyone that they would earn twice as much than what they earn working abroad for someone else and their cost and expenses will be much lower compared to the expenses they face abroad. This is for sure and I would like to thank you for setting this example here.
– Mr. Prime Minister, I am an applicant and a beneficiary of funding under the national support scheme for 2022 and I have had the assistance from the local Rural and Agricultural Development Agency and the regional agriculture directorate in Elbasan. They have assisted me and have provided solutions to every problem I have been encountering. I have already received the first tranche together with the excide-free oil supplies. The main issue we face now is that no agricultural collection and storage centre is operational in this area. Therefore, we are forced to transport our products to Divjake and it costs. I also consume more than 800 kWh of electricity given the large area of my greenhouse.
PM Edi Rama: The 800 kWh electricity consumption cap is not applied to the greenhouses, but it is meant for household consumers. As far as the agricultural collection and storage centre, I already said that nobody should wait for me to bring such a centre here. You shouldn’t also wait for any entrepreneur to come and collect your products. The best solution for you is to join forces and together launch a company, an entrepreneurship or a joint venture, with the local government participating with a small percentage of shares. You should just design the project and will provide due support for you to build a collection and storage centre here.
