Albanian Government Council of Ministers

Successful Albanian enterprises in the country are already competing with dignity also in the international market. The formalization of the economy has brought to light and given a new breathing to those enterprises who until yesterday had to compete with honesty in an environment threatened by informality.

The 100% Albanian KID-ALB Ltd is one of the biggest factories in the Balkans for the production and marketing of ceramic bricks and tiles. 12 million euros have been invested since the beginning of its activity for the construction and purchase of machinery and equipment. The factory has applied the most recent technology, fully automated and monitored online in every aspect round the clock. To be in touch with new inflows of the most recent technology, the factory spends 600 thousand Euros per year.

One of the most prestigious of its kind, this factory has a qualified and experienced staff of over 77 employees, engineers, technicians and specialists from various fields, working to both deliver the products and to maintain and manage the company.

In the past two years, thanks to new fiscal policies undertaken by the government and to a new relationship with the state, the factory was returned approximately 1.6 million Euros of debt owed to the enterprise by the state.

Prime Minister Edi Rama, along with the Minister of Economy Arben Ahmetaj and the Director General of Taxation Briseida Shehaj, visited today the factory which currently has made another investment to update its infrastructure.

The factory owner, Asllan Baraj explained that thanks to the mitigating measures undertaken by the government, with a direct impact on the activity, exports and the factory production capacity have significantly increased in the past two years. “When we built this plant, it had a production capacity of 450 tons per day. While today its production capacity is of over 600 tons. So we have had a steady growth in the last two years. In addition, the 1.6 million Euro debts owed by the previous government, and which you repaid us, were reinvested in the plant infrastructure and allowed us to increase the production capacity. Exports have increased from 27% to 44%in these two years, and now they exceed 50%.”

In terms of the activity in the domestic market, Prime Minister Edi Rama said that now that illegal construction has been limited and the territory has been put under control, a green light has been given to the building permits. “Since we can now say that we have under control the territory, illegal construction has been vastly limited. In addition, the administrative reorganization has given the green light to the building permits, and, above all, to productive investments.”

Asllan Baraj claims with optimism that the fight against informality has established a new relationship between them and links to other smaller businesses, whose informal behaviour used to damage a healthy trading relationship. “In addition to support the prevention of illegal constructions, we support 100% also the formalization of the economy. Formalization of the economy has helped us a lot. Our factory has been one of the formalized factories since the beginning, and we were 100% formalized. Since we work mostly with small traders rather than with privates, the former didn’t want VAT because it increased their turnover. Things are different now. Everyone has VAT. The fight against informality is yielding results”, the owner of the factory said.

Prime Minister Edi Rama said that although there is still much to be done in the fight against informality, results achieved so far have significantly reduced unfair competition. In addition to reaffirming the government’s commitment in the process of the formalization of the economy, the Prime Minister said that formalization will not allow dishonest beneficiaries to make profits at the expense of small businesses. “The fight against informality is producing results, but there is still much to be done. We are trying our best to not stress business. We have changed tactics because we are now in a different phase. We have an electronic brain that collects the turnovers of the business, and rings an alarm bell in case of deviations. We will extend this electronic brain also with the partnership in the public interest. You have a direct benefit from the reduction of unfair competition. Small businesses have started to modify their behaviour. Large business cannot any longer take advantage of the small ones to illegally deflate their profits. On the other hand, as far as construction is concerned, we have another situation. Dwellings across the rural area can now be built without any problem. You just have to keep with the procedures in the municipality.”

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