Prime Minister Edi Rama’s remarks at launch of concrete projects under the 100 Villages Programme in Tushemisht, Pogradec:

Greetings everyone! There is not much to be said following the exhaustive presentations about the foundations already laid in our drive to press ahead with the ambitious 100 Villages Programme through concrete projects. Meanwhile, we have already set aside a budget funding to support this programme in addition to the funding due to be allocated by the respective Ministries and we have now entered a stage when this projects should be materialized according to certain order of priorities.

The newly introduced project is an extraordinary project in terms of its ambitions and potential.

Of course it needs more time and details and the project implementation plan which spans more than a year and, on the other hand, given the fact that a discussion has taken place about the project in advance, I would like to emphasize that we have agreed with the architects and urban planners that the newly introduced project be the endpoint of a development that should link not only the promenade project presented here, but it will become a splendid promenade along the entire lakeshore. So it will be a lake promenade (Lungogjol), as Eduard Shalsi has named it, that will strongly highlight the lake features and tourist identity along the whole stretch of the shore on our side of the lake.

As far as other aspects are concerned, I already told you that we are in a very creative and intense process of an extremely voluminous work being carried out by the academy of 100 villages and now there is nothing more to do than to advance work by creating models, prototypes and landmarks in every aspect of the programme that will create different gravity to ensure a program’s progress to assume the required form of a rural renaissance extended to all components of sustainable rural development.

To conclude, I would like to appreciate every individual involved in these presentations and everyone else working as part of the 100 villages academy. I am hopeful that we will come back here, not to introduce projects, but to begin their implementation according to the scheduled timelines that will be defined as the starting point of this program in all selected villages.

It is important to understand that, first of all, this is not a common programme. Secondly, it is not a rural road construction project, but it is a programme of energizing all those points and components that make the Albanian village very special and translate our ambition into a thriving tourist development across rural Albania in concrete destinations for genuine reasons of exploration of Albania’s richness in many dimensions.

Once again, many thanks to everyone and I would like assure all those watching us now and who are residents of this area, Pogradec, which, despite of what it might seem, we have constantly placed attention and have been totally committed to make sure that this blessed area doesn’t lag behind, but quite the contrary, and the newly-built access road to Pogradec is an example of this commitment, while all these projects await the end of June when we will assume the needed executive power to build new synergies between the local and the central government.

Thank you!