TIRANA, November 4/ATA/ Governor of the Bank of Albania Gent Sejko presented today the draft budget of the year 2023 for the Bank of Albania in the Economy and Finance Committee.
Sejko said that the draft budget of 2023 is presented under the conditions of a major challenge, a challenge which has affected both the world and the Albanian economy.
“The Bank of Albania considers that the expansion of inflationary pressures constitutes the main risk for the sustainable and long-term growth of the country. For this reason, the current priority of economic policies should be taking measures to guarantee price stability. Hence, the Bank of Albania has started normalizing the stance of the monetary policy, gradually increasing the basic interest rate”, said Sejko.
In the opinion of the Bank of Albania, he continued, fiscal consolidation through measures taken by the government will have positive effects on the Albanian economy and financial markets. We positively evaluate the projected reduction of public debt in next year’s draft budget, from the level of 68.8% of GDP expected for 2022, to the level of 67.5% of GDP for 2023.
“The Bank of Albania considers that fiscal consolidation and the normalization of the stance of monetary policy constitute the best possible combination of economic policies. This combination enables the return of inflation to the target within the first half of 2024, and does not affect the premises of economic growth”, declared Sejko.
The governor emphasized that, “Our projections suggest that the country’s economic growth will remain in positive territory for the next few years, although the foreign environment remains challenging. The growth of the Albanian economy is expected to be supported by the internal demand for goods and services, by the sound financial balances of the private sector, by maintenance of positive rates of bank credit, as well as by the continuation of the increasing trend of income from tourism”./p.s./
