TIRANA, March 3 /ATA/ – The Minister of Finance and Economy Delina Ibrahimaj and the Swiss Ambassador to Albania, Ruth Huber, signed agreement on implementation of the third phase of RisiAlbania project designed to consolidate a functional labour market system for youth.
Finance Minister Ibrahimaj noted that policies and projects aimed at increasing youth employment are top government priorities.
“Our budget policies also aim to boost sectors such as tourism, agriculture through development of the value chain in medicinal plants, fruits and vegetables, enabling businesses to gain access to high-value markets, increase local income and create more employment opportunities for young people,” the Finance and Economy Minister said.
“It is of utmost importance to equip young women and men with proper career advice and with market-relevant skills. It is equally important to enable businesses to offer better and more inclusive jobs. That is the objective of the project agreement we sign today”, said Swiss Ambassador Ruth Huber.
The agreement formalizes and facilitates the cooperation between several institutions and authorities in Albania, where the Ministry of Finance and Economy plays a central role, to improve young people’s career counselling and information, increase the skills required by the market, as well as support businesses to be more competitive and sustainable. The project is in the third and final phase and the grant from the Swiss government is 6.9 million Euro.
The project is oriented towards innovation and works in the fields of agribusiness, information technology and tourism. In the two previous phases, new and valuable practices have been introduced, which we aim to extend further, while consolidating a more favourable environment for the employment of young people. The contribution of the previous phases includes: enabling employment for around 12,000 young women and men, improving access to employment information for around 110,000 young women/men, and improving skills and training for 9,750 young women/men.
A special focus of the project will be the field of quality standards, where the private sector will be supported with compliance to international and EU standards.
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