“The Albanian Tradition” is a handicraft enterprise operating in the market for 15 years now with the design, tailoring and sewing of traditional folk clothing and costumes from all Albanian-speaking territories, as well as of other handicraft items. Prime Minister Edi Rama visited today this enterprise, which, like many others, benefited from the reduced profit tax rate from 15 to 5% from January 1.
The Albanian Tradition business owner said that handicrafts offer great potential of employment and income generation. With the fiscal incentives and increased range of products, the handicraft business is seeking to grow the number of its employees.
“I deal with manufacturing traditional costumes for 15 years now. I am technically self-taught and we design and manufacture folk clothing from all Albanian regions. I have been thinking to make use of the traditional folk costumes as tourism attractions and I plan to host training programs for young people to engage in handcrafting and designing models of traditional clothing. We have increased the variety of our products by adding old clothing, reconstructed clothing, and handicrafts, including items produced by other artisans from all over Albania. I have trying to showcase our products domestically, because knowing how difficult craftsmanship is and by collaborating and coming together to have the handcrafted products in such a good presentation, in such a good place, I believe we will increase our values. It takes 36 work processes to manufacture a folk costume. I believe this sector holds great employment generation potential. Around 70 % of handcrafted items is result of the labor force. The more we increase value of an item, the more we can afford to employ other workers,” she explained.
According to her, by growing the number of employees, she will be able to expand her business and gain access to foreign market through exports. “We have received demands for manufacturing foreign national costumes, including Greek, Norwegian and Croatian traditional dresses. There are a lot of people who are interested to cooperate. But in order to sign cooperation contracts, you should have a skilled personnel and it takes around a year for a worker to gain handcrafting skills. We would be able to start exporting our products if we were to find the right skilled workers,” she added.
Prime Minister Edi Rama pledged the government support through special training programs. “We can help you with the training programs. The vocational training programs are designed to provide jobless women the opportunity to stop receiving unemployment and social assistance payment and instead take up a decent job,” PM Rama said.
The government head noted that the threefold decrease of the profit tax rate on businesses with an annual turnover ranging from 80 to 140 million lek will give a breath and fresh impetus to their economic activity. “The profit tax rate cut from 15 to 5 percent only is a measure aimed at helping businesses of this category to breath freely as such businesses are sophisticated that help with diversification and innovations in really important sectors of the economy. We can now afford to cut taxes now,” he said.
On her part, the entrepreneur pledged she will now invest to expand business and grow the number of employees, saying they are her greatest asset. “With the reduced taxes, I will invest the returned money to expand business and increase number of employees. To me, they are the real asset. They cost me more, but I believe that by growing the workers number and strengthening cooperation with other handicraftsmen, I will be able to forge cooperation contracts with foreign entrepreneurs and Albanians living abroad.”
