Tirana, March 23 /ATA/- Albania is upgraded by Euromoney’s risk experts as it continues along the path towards EU accession. Prime minister Edi Rama’s government is finally implementing the judicial reforms required for initiating those discussions, vetting judges, police officers and prison officials, and dismissing those who refuse the intrusion that is aimed at establishing their competence and integrity.
Consequently, speculation is growing the EU negotiation process will finally get under way this June, a development that is likely to underpin the trend improvement of Albanian assets alongside other countries in the region similarly targeting integration. Improving risk On a total risk score of just 38 points from a maximum 100 available in the survey, Albania is still a high-risk borrower within the fourth of Euromoney’s five risk categories. However, its score and ranking have improved, pushing
Albania higher to 89th out of 186 countries surveyed, above FYR Macedonia – now two places below – and with similar EU ambitions to Serbia (75th) and Montenegro (112).
They are among 15 political, economic and structural factors contributing to the country risk score in Euromoney’s survey. Credit access has similarly improved in recent years and is also factored in to the risk score – reforms to facilitate credit access are behind the improvement inAlbania’s ranking for Doing Business compiled by the World Bank. And with the economy growing, the debt burden fell to just below 70% of GDP last year, after reaching a peak of 73% in 2015, according to figures published by the
Ministry of Finance – an achievement secured by a legal change passed by parliament in 2016 to make it incumbent upon government to ensure the debt alls each year, ultimately below the 60% threshold forming one of the Maastricht macro-fiscal criteria for EU membership.
Dimitria Rotsika, senior economist at Piraeus Bank Group, is one of several Euromoney survey contributors with a generally favourable impression of Albania’s prospects. “The country has been showing steady signs of a strong momentum, with radical structural reforms already paving the way of a new growth model,” she says. “The combination of relatively high economic growth in the coming few years, fiscal consolidation and correction of the banks’ NPL balances is positive for the country’s aim of future EU accession.”
/e.caushi/sm/
