April, 2018/Tirana. The Bank of Albania and the EBRD launched the EBRD Transition Report 2017-2018, EBRD’s annual update on reform progress and economic developments across 37 countries from Central Europe to Central Asia and the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean.
According to the Report, Albania’s economy grew in line with comparators pre-crisis, but lagged behind post-crisis until recently. The report – Supporting growth– focuses on the challenge of keeping progress with reference to the experience of average incomes economies. The report also presents the continuity of the structural reform and a new evaluation of the regional countries progress conducted by EBRD based on their transition to sustainable economies.
Priorities for Albania in 2018:
EU-oriented reforms should be stepped up. It is critical that the momentum in the EU approximation is preserved and accelerated, especially in public administration reform and rule of law.
Further business environment reforms are needed. The campaign against informality has yielded important results but extra efforts are needed to tackle deep-rooted problems such as getting electricity, registering property and enforcing contracts.
The reform momentum in the power sector should be accelerated. Further improvements in governance and operational practices of SOEs in the power sector are needed to make their financial position sustainable.
Transition Report 2017-18 in this link: EBRD TR 2017-18 .