Marcela Kërëku of the Department of Public Administration represented the country and contributed to the discussions on the role of integrity as a key factor for competitiveness and development.

During the session on the topic “The Integrity Advantage: Integrity in the Public Sector through Training”, there was highlighted the significance of training in the public sector and the use of online courses to improve the ethics and integrity of civil servants, as part of reforms for a more efficient, transparent and accountable administration.

The forum highlighted how public sector integrity and streamlined administrative procedures boost the business climate and economic growth, particularly in the Western Balkans.

Albania participated in this event in cooperation and with the support of ReSPA. /gj.m/r.e/j.p/p.s./

During a meeting with young people recruited through employment promotion programs, Rama stated that, “This is evidence that Albania offers opportunities for all young people who really want to work and build a successful career”.

Rama said that the OECD report speaks clearly about the work that has been done in the course of all these years to build an employment services scheme that has yielded encouraging results.

“Currently, there are seven active programs aimed at promoting employment and cover all categories. These range from professional practice to practice in the workplace, from self-employment to social reintegration”, Rama stated.

Another promising data, according to the prime minister, is that in the last 5 years alone, 42 thousand young people have been employed through our labor offices and through these services. /a.f/p.s./

The signing of this convention is part of the measures, within the framework of the international project BEPS, i.e. Base Erosion and Profit Shifting, of which Albania has been a part since 2019.

This is to address the tax challenges arising from the digitalization of the economy.

During his speech, Malaj stated that Albania will be able to fulfill its commitments with greater efficiency, given that the main goal of the Convention is to help increase the transparency and integrity of the international tax system.

Albania’s Ministry of Finance will continue to be committed to promoting tax justice, increasing revenues, preventing profit shifting, and ensuring fiscal sustainability, for the benefit of a better business climate. /k.s//a.f//r.e/p.s./

During this forum, Pirdeni discussed with the representatives of the countries of the Eastern Partnership about the experiences in strengthening democratic institutions.

Pirdeni said that, “I emphasized the transformation reforms undertaken by Albania, led by the Reform in Justice, to create stable but also reliable institutions”.

“Despite the fact that the Western Balkan region and the countries of the Eastern Partnership face a different geopolitical pressure, together we share some of the challenges of consolidating institutions and deepening reforms that bring European standards to our countries”, emphasized Pirdeni.

During this forum, there were discussed on topics on how to deal with the increase in polarization in our societies and how to promote social dialogue to push forward the reforms required by democracies around the world. /k.s/r.e/p.s./

Albania was represented by the Deputy Minister of Infrastructure and Energy, Ceno Klosi.

The workshop saw introduction of the scenarios and policies on funding energy sector reform aimed at building a thorough energy sector for all the countries in the region.

Deputy Minister Ceno Klosi highlighted ongoing reform efforts in Albania’s energy sector, underlining that the country is now capable of facing global crisis, like the 2022 energy crisis, and the sector is becoming a major engine of the national economy.

Klosi said in a social media post that the exchange of ideas between the participants was fruitful, focusing on the developments and improvements of the sector from different perspectives. He added that Albania is on the right track to develop a stable and powerful energy sector, which not only withstands global crises, but contributes significantly to the country’s economic growth.

/u.sh/

Minister of Economy, Culture and Innovation Blendi Gonxhja said that, “According to the OECD report, Albania ranks the first among the 6 countries of the Western Balkans in regard to employment policies, with an increase of two places compared to 2021”.

Gonxhja said that these improvements are due to government policies in function of the development of the labor market.

“These improvements come thanks to ongoing reforms to activate the labor market and efforts to strengthen skills development,” said Gonxhja.

The OEDC Report measures the progress of policies in the main spheres of the economies of the Western Balkan countries, in terms of the labor market.

According to the report, Albania has the highest result with 3.5 points in the employment dimension among the 6 countries of the Western Balkans, leaving behind Montenegro with 3.4 points; Serbia with 3.3 points; North Macedonia with 3.1 points; Bosnia and Herzegovina with 2.2 points and Kosovo with 2 points. /p.s./

The OECD report on Competitiveness 2024 has positively assessed the policies of the countries of the Western Balkans in 15 main dimensions, analyzing over 440 economic and sectoral indicators so that to improve competitiveness.

According to the OECD, Albania has made great progress in the policies of employment, tourism, trade, environment, agriculture, energy, finance, the fight against corruption, education, digital society, investments, and more. It is the regional leader in 13 out of the 15 dimensions of the report.

The Albanian government is committed to implement the recommendations for a stable and competitive economy, towards a green and digital transition, including dignified integration in the EU.

Minister of Economy, Culture and Innovation Blendi Gonxhja said from France where there was presented the report, that Albania has a leading role in the region. “The OECD has announced the competitiveness report for the year 2024. It has analyzed the data of 2023, compared to 2021, where Albania, after 440 indicators have been analyzed, leads and is above the average of the countries of the Western Balkans, for 13 of the dimensions from 15 in total and in 14 of the dimensions, Albania is making progress”.

“There is progress in the employment, environmental, tourism, agriculture sector and in the fight against corruption in which, of course, there is still much to do. This essential report comes at an important moment for Albania, where we are finalizing the reform agenda within the EU’s growth plan, to achieve the fastest convergence and harmonization on our way to membership in the EU”, said Gonxhja. /r.e/p.s./

Beqaj presented the request of the government of Albania for admission to the OECD Development Center, the country profile, the latest social and economic developments, progress in dealing with three consecutive crises and progress on the path to membership in the European Union.

The representatives of different countries such as: Japan, Italy, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Brazil, Peru, Morocco and Paraguay, asked different questions related to issues of demography, sustainable tourism, local finance, skills, education, gender equality, climate change, etc.

The representative of the European Union held a positive stance during the meeting of the Board regarding the request of the Albanian government.

By the end of March 2023, the request of the Albanian government is expected to be positively formalized at a meeting of the Executive Board of the OECD.

In June 2022, Prime Minister Edi Rama officially submitted the request on behalf of the government of the Republic of Albania, for admission to the OECD Development Center.

The governing board of this Center analyzed the request and in November 2022 made the decision to go ahead with the evaluation procedures of the request of the Albanian government./gj.m/p.s./

This assessment is made by the OECD, in the recently published report “SME Policy Index: Western Balkans and Turkey 2022: Assessing the Implementation of the Small Business Act for Europe.

The report estimates that since 2019, Albania has improved its performance in all 12 policy areas, thus reflecting the importance of SMEs in the government’s policy agenda.

Albania has achieved its highest average scores in the following areas: institutional and regulatory framework for SME policy making; operational environment for SMEs; public procurement; standards and technical regulations; and internationalization of SMEs, where it also outperforms the Western Balkans and Turkey (WBT) average.

The report evaluates some of the reforms made in the country. Thus, the report assesses that Albania’s operational environment for SMEs remains the most advanced in the region. The government has continued implementing digital reforms under a whole-of-government approach and made progress in both increasing the availability of digital government services and streamlining them to better fit users’ needs. Albania is the only WBT economy that has streamlined company registration and licensing under its one-stop-shop (the National Business Centre, NBC) and introduced digital distribution of licensing officials, which speeds up the process, increases transparency and lowers administrative burdens and costs for SMEs.

Important progress has been made in the area of public procurement by increasingly aligning its regulatory framework with EU requirements, adopting key strategic documents, in particular, actions concerning SMEs’ access and developments with regard to e-procurement. The new Public Procurement Law (PPL) contains provisions that are, to a very large extent, harmonized with the 2014 EU Directives and the first comprehensive National Public Procurement Strategy (2020-2023), adopted in November 2020, foresees measures and activities aimed at increasing the participation of SMEs in the public procurement market.

EU alignment and implementation support for SMEs in technical regulations and standards was expanded. Albania continued to align its quality infrastructure with the EU acquis in key areas such as metrology and is developing a roadmap to identify remaining unharmonised technical regulations. At the same time, Albania also strengthened the staff capacities of its quality infrastructure institutions and expanded a support programme for SMEs who seek certification according to European or international standards. Overall, these activities will improve the access for SMEs that need to certify their products, services or processes to conform with European standards and regulations.

Albania has made considerable progress supporting SME internationalization. By developing export support services, the government has advanced in creating an enabling environment that enhances export sophistication and innovation while also boosting export competitiveness. With a number of new support programmes implemented, additional advancements are expected regarding SME integration into global value chains (GVCs). Furthermore, cluster formation and development has steadily been progressing since the last assessment cycle. Through newly introduced programmes and extensive stakeholder consultations (with business associations and academia), the government established a wood cluster to facilitate technology and knowledge transfer within the industry.

Small and medium-sized enterprises contribute to economic performance and the sustainable and engaging development of societies.

In Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, the Republic of North Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey (the seven candidate economies for the EU), they account for about three quarters of private sector employment and generate about 60% of value added of the private sector./p.s./