TIRANA, July  4 /ATA/ Minister of Finance and Economy, Delina Ibrahimaj, stated on Tuesday that the Albanian economy grew by 2.72% for the first quarter of 2023.

At the monthly media conference on economic indicators, Minister Ibrahimaj announced that the economic growth stood at the average level for the countries of the region, but above the average for EU countries.

“The growth of 2.72% of the economy was in the average of the countries of the region, higher than the growth in Serbia and North Macedonia, but lower than in Kosovo and Montenegro. Compared to the EU countries, the growth was significantly higher, since the average growth of the economy in the EU countries was 1%”, said the minister.

The minister emphasized that the economic growth was spread across all sectors of the economy.

“We’ve had broad-based growth. Agriculture and fisheries recorded an increase of 0.04%, positively influenced by the activity of agriculture and livestock, and more positively by the activity of fisheries, which increased by 11%. Agricultural exports have resulted in a significant increase in value and volume. For the first quarter, agricultural exports increased by 7.6% in volume and 16.8% in value. The positive performance of agriculture has continued throughout the January-May period, which saw exports increase by 15% in value and 14% in volume,” the minister emphasized.

On the other hand, the minister said that the branch of industry has contributed with 1.23%, where the main contributors are the branch of electricity with an increase of about 6 percentage points, or 38.6%, driven by the favorable water conditions that have impacted local production

“The extraction industry has made a negative contribution and the performance of the industry has been affected by the prices in the raw materials of the products of this industry,” Ibrahimaj said.

The minister pointed out that the construction sector has continued its positive contribution to the economy, with about 4.5%.

“The positive performance of this sector is expected to continue in the coming period, starting either from the number or the value of construction permits, but also from private and public investments”, declared the minister.

Another good performing sector, according to Ibrahimaj, was that of tourism.

“Tourism data and activities related to this branch, such as accommodation and food service, have increased by 7.2%. The operational data for the 5-month period speak of a fairly positive performance of this sector, although in 2022 it was the best performing sector. The number of foreign citizens entering Albania has increased by 42.5%. If we translate it into numbers, there are 2.4 million foreign citizens who entered the country, or about 700 thousand more than last year”, said the minister.

According to her, this shows that the policies for promoting the tourism sector implemented  by the government have delivered the right impact.

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TIRANA, Oct  3 /ATA/ Minister of Finance and Economy, Delina Ibrahimaj, stated on Monday that the Albanian economy grew by 2.23% in the second quarter of this year, compared to the same period a year ago.

During a press conference on the progress of economy so far, Ibrahimaj said that growth slowed down in comparison to the first quarter, when the level was 6.5%.

The main contribution, she said, was made by the trade, transport, accommodation and food service sector.

“In the 6-month period, the Albanian economy has grown by 4.17%. The Ministry of Finance and Economy stands by the forecasts at the beginning of the year for an economic growth of 3.2% during the year 2022. We even expect that the growth can be over 3.2%,” the minister said.

Regarding the comparison with the regional countries, Ibrahimaj emphasized that Albania recorded the highest growth rate in the region after Montenegro.

“Other countries of the region such as Kosovo, North Macedonia and Serbia recorded a lower growth rate in the 6-month period. Montenegro is the only country in the region that has had a higher growth of 9.64%,” the minister said.

Referring to a review carried out by MoFE, to understand how each economy has buffered the effects of the crisis, Ibrahimaj said that compared to 2019, economic activity in the first half of the year has increased to 7.75%.

“While other countries such as Kosovo, North Macedonia and Montenegro have not yet buffered the effects of the pandemic crisis. Serbia is the only country other than Albania, that has had a significantly higher growth than in 2019,” she said. /j.p/sm/