TIRANA, Nov 8 /ATA/ – The proposed 2025 state budget prioritizes the national and local infrastructure and important investments in Albania’s tourism to meet the growing demand in this sector.
The Minister of Tourism and Environment Mirela Kumbaro said Friday that the state budget spending for tourism will help domestic investments increase by 19% in 2025.
In her remarks during a hearing at the Parliamentary Committee on the Productive Activities, Kumbaro focused on two main investment projects on protected areas, namely the project on requalification of the eco-park in Ulez, northeast Albania, a national natural park since 2022, in a bid to ensure the park’s sustainable development according to the best international standards, as well as the Vjosa River multifunctional centre project, after the wild river was declared a national park.
Tourism Minister announced that plan on integrated management of Vjosa River National Park has been adopted and a series of smaller projects will be implemented in Korça, Gjirokaster, Fier and Vlore through assistance from the German government.
She also said that the application has been completed to designate Vjosa River on UNESCO’s list of world assets protected under the “Man and the Biosphere” program.
Vjosa was declared a National Park (Category II protected areas) last March on the basis of which the 273-km long Vjosa-Aoös River, from its source to the flow into the sea, including its branches and tributaries, is granted complete national and cross-border protection in accordance with the highest international standards and it is effectively preserved as a free-flowing and living river for the benefit of the people and the nature n Albania, Greece and whole world.
The Albanian government has decided to strengthen the protection of the Vjosa River, often described as the “last wild river in Europe” because its waters flow almost unimpeded from its source in Greece to the Adriatic Sea.
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