Prime Minister Edi Rama attended today the opening of the Furniture Fair “Albania 2015”, which according to the tradition took place at the premises of the Palace of Congresses.
The fair presents mainly products by Albanian companies in the woodworking industry, as well as products from Kosovo. In addition, it aims at presenting this sector and its development capacity and opportunities, as well as sharing best practices in Albania and abroad.
President of “Business Albania” Luan Bregasi informed that the main participants of the fair are Albanian companies which represent 90% of exhibitors. He noted that this sector is progressing rapidly, as a result of government policies to support domestic production. “Here we have almost 90% of the Albanian production companies “Made in Albania” and approximately 12% are companies from Kosovo and abroad.
250 million Euros have been invested in the sector and exports in this sector are worth 300 million Euros per year. So business works regularly. We are here today not to make a parade of success, but to show our growing confidence for economic stabilization in Albania, for the support given by the government to this sector, particularly to domestic production with incentive policies for exports and in the area of fiscal policy. I would like to thank Prime Minister Rama who found time and visited the fair. This is of great support for the private sector and in particular for the Albanian joinery manufacturers”- President of “Business Albania”, Luan Bregasi said.
The President of the Association of Joiners said that the range of products is expanding every year, increasing the ambition of producers to further perfect their quality. He added that the aim of the Association of furniture producers is to increase exports. “We strengthen every year the range of products and we are very excited to have the Prime Minister here today. We hope we will expand the range of our activities and products and will focus on export, to represent our products “Made in Albania” across Europe”.
Prime Minister Rama considered this fair of Albanian production to be impressive. He stressed that the government will continue its support to the sector, to encourage employment and enhance customer confidence in Albanian products.
“I am very grateful to the Association of Furniture Manufacturers for this invitation. It’s a very impressive display of ideas and of the extraordinary courage of these people. Some of them started everything from scratch here; others came from immigration to continue here, to bring experience and at the same time to create new jobs. It is a sector that now counts over 80 thousand employees. The ambition is to go over 100 thousand employees, certainly by supporting the sector. The main support is the promotion to create even more favorable conditions for export and at the same time to enhance the confidence of customers who often address to other countries and pay much more for products that are of the same quality. Finally, I believe that this is an industry to be looked at even more by design people, people who have studied the arts because there is much room to improve in order to move towards a closed cycle and to make design be a local product.
I believe that the industry is with open arms towards the new talents and innovative ideas that bring talents. Meanwhile, it is forced to work also with copies, but this is part of the achievement.” – Prime Minister Rama noted.
