TIRANA, May 11/ATA/ Governor of the Bank of Albania Gent Sejko stated today that the Albanian economy recovered with rapid steps during 2021.
While reporting to the Parliamentary Committee on Economy and Finance, Sejko, referring to the data of the Institute of Statistics, stated that the Gross Domestic Product increased into 8.5%, after shrinking into 3.5% during 2020.
“The rapid economic growth reflected the reduction of restrictive measures, the increase of confidence, the improvement of the foreign environment, as well as the monetary and fiscal incentives. These factors paved the way for the rapid expansion of demand for goods and services,” said Sejko.
Sejko assessed that the recovery was complete. “Both, the economy as a whole and its individual sectors in particular, have exceeded the levels of production and income they provided in the period before the pandemic and the earthquake of 2019,” he said.
The recovery, Sejko noted, reflected the positive contribution of all economic actors.
According to him, the progressive growth of demand for goods and services enabled the growth of employment, wages and profit margins, being reflected in an upward trend of inflation in line with the target.
“Average inflation resulted in 2% in 2021, compared to 1.6% a year earlier. On the other hand, the rapid rise in prices in the international market pushed inflation to the level of 3.7% in December 2021 and 5.7% in March 2022 “, said Sejko.
Focusing on the role played by the Bank of Albania in the recovery process, both in terms of economic growth and in maintaining monetary and financial stability, Sejko said that monetary policy continued to remain on the stimulating side during 2021.
“The key interest rate remained at its all-time low of 0.5%, while the volume of liquidity injected into the system increased. In parallel, the Bank of Albania continued to orient the market on the direction of monetary policy in the future, reducing uncertainty in financial markets “, he added.
While the stimulus course of monetary policy, said Sejko, provided an environment with low financing costs and suitable lending conditions.
“Financial markets functioned normally and were characterized by abundant liquidity and controlled risk premiums. The effective transmission of monetary stimulus has kept credit interest rates low for the private and public sectors. Also, the exchange rate was relatively stable, reflecting the balance of supply and demand for foreign currency,” said the Governor./p.s./
