TIRANA, May 4 /ATA/ – Albania’s public debt is pursuing a downward trajectory for first time since 2013.
Countries that have been committed to fiscal consolidation, such as “Albania and Serbia, are seeing their debt go down.”
The World Bank’s latest evaluation converges with Albanian government’s 2019 target that plans a budget deficit of 1.9% of GDP by the end of this year.
Meanwhile, the country’s public debt fell to 63.6 percent of GDP in March 2019.
The data show a consolidated decline, following a previous trend and showing that the public debt rate will further drop in the coming months.
This is lowest record budget deficit level and complies with the government’s commitment to cut the public debt burden.
For fourth consecutive, the state budget plans a primary fiscal surplus, meaning that current government has not accumulated new arrears and public debt, but it rather generates the surplus to pay back the inherited debts from the previous governments over the years.
In its program, the government has predicted that the reduction of public debt will not affect the expected investment projections of around 5% of GDP.
The World Bank notes that public and publicly guaranteed debt remained high in most countries, and rose in Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Kosovo in 2018. Fiscal risks related to pensions, municipal finances, and state-owned enterprises are also on the rise.
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