Gjirokaster, another renewed city with it historic and cultural heritage values, is an increasingly popular tourist destination, also thanks to a string of investment projects on upgrading the city’s infrastructure and new attractions, museums, guesthouses and traditional houses, which, although fundamentally restored, best preserve the beautiful local tradition. Prime Minister Edi Rama visited the southern town of Gjirokaster, a UNESCO World Heritage site, where he held a meeting with local tourism operators, young people who have returned back home and through the government support have launched new household businesses.
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Thank you very much for coming here. As I already noticed last night and today, the guest houses, hotels and your shops in the Bazaar Pass are jam-packed with people and I am very glad, again, that the feeling impact from this visit is the sense of change, novelty and continued development that is increasingly becoming more capillary, not only thanks to the government projects and investments, but also thanks to the stable and continued investment projects designed to transform the private family homes and launch new family businesses and boost household and local economy.
I was pleased to visit another new hotel facility a day ago. I have told (the Tourism Minister) Mirela that I would wish to see a new hotel or a guesthouse complete or being constructed any time I visit Gjirokaster, and I visit the city very often indeed. This has been actually the case by far and you of course know it better that the number of accommodation facilities, the number of visitors to the city was very small just five or six years ago and a grey shadow of oblivion and abandonment had swept the city with the destroyed coble-stone streets, the devastated Old Bazaar, dilapidated buildings etc.
However, the situation is not all roses indeed. It is actually a disturbing situation, because the world, and certainly Europe and Albania too, have ushered in an era of new threats. A new era of threats due to the escalation of an ongoing conflict that has degraded to the point that one could suggest a potential nuclear war as if talking about stone-throwing clashes in a neighbourhood. A nuclear war that would mean the end of everything and of course, although geographically far from the war zone and the heart of this fiery blazing heart of this potential major world conflict, where bombs are being thrown and released, we are still being hit by the rising inflation triggered by this war and Vladimir Putin’s extreme aggression not only on Ukraine, but also on the West, because Putin bets to defeat West by winter. The next winter is said to be the most difficult winter in post-WWII Europe. It will be as such for us too. And it would be even harder. Why? This is because Europe’s energy and heating sources and operation of all industries have been maximally limited. What is our position in this context? In this context, we have been fortunately spared of the worst blow, also thanks to the government’s decision and determination, for the sake of truth, to keep the electricity price unchanged.
You consume electricity with the pre-war price rate and your bill doesn’t include what the state budget, the common state coffer pays to make up for the higher electricity generation cost, because we strongly believe that the government is in office to serve as a shield and prevent effects of the energy crisis, which has pushed up prices extremely high, be included in the electricity bill of the households and small businesses. Not only that, but although we have imposed a 800 kWh consumption cap, which is sufficient to cover the needs of the households, and we have announced that higher rates or real energy price will be applied over this consumption limit, because a small number of households, around 60,000, consume more than 800 kWh monthly. However, we postponed enforcement of this decision taking notice of an opportunity that was created and we are now exploring every possible opportunity so that such a price cap is not enforced during November too.
Yesterday I happened to watch the European Commission’s President Ursula von der Leyen appearing on TV, urging people to save energy. If we save, we will have available energy, if not, we will lack it and if we want to have electricity, we would be forced to purchase it at a very high price. We are forced to import a part of the electricity and fewer rains, less electricity will be produced and therefore we would have to import it.
Our government plan projected the minimum wage to increase to 40,000 lek within this term in office. Yet, we should make such a decision much earlier, so we will raise the minimum monthly wage to 40,000 lek much earlier. This is indispensable! We should hike the wages of all public administration workers and the state’s civil servants, although we have already increased the pay for nurses, doctors and teachers. That’s why we have refrained from adopting the so-called temporary pay rise, like the one two-month or three-month increase. Instead, we have approved permanent salary and pension hikes and that’s why the 2023 state budget bill will include a specific funding to cope with this situation. The 2023 state budget will double.
We have allocated a new bonus for restoration of the old family homes and 11 applicants from Gjirokaster have been declared winners and 11 more homes will be transformed into agritourism businesses. However, this is not enough. We will in the meantime make a final decision that not a single so-called owner can keep the old traditional houses hostage.
The government’s low tax policy, the reduced VAT and other taxes on the guesthouses and hotels, has turned out to be very effective. However, this sector should increase the salaries of its workers. I reiterate, the minimum wages should be increased and the wages in general should be increased. This is essential. It is essential because the cost of losing the human capital is very high.
