TIRANA, Feb. 3 – The Albanian government has announced a 500 hectare area in Spitalle, just outside Durres, as a free economic zone that will be awarded under a 35-year concession for a symbolic 1 Euro.
The decision is part of the 1 Euro initiative, offering state-owned assets for a symbolic price of 1 Euro in return for investments and job creation.
A Chinese company which has offered to build the Arbri road linking Albania to Macedonia is expected to get the concession.
Albanian Economy Minister Arben Ahmetaj says the highway linking Albania to Macedonia known as the Arbri Road, an industrial park just outside Durres and the Adriatic-Ionian highway are some of the Albanian projects expected to benefit from Chinese funding of $10 billion in infrastructure projects for Central and Eastern European countries.
The concession is part of the “Albania 1 Euro” initiative which had also been launched 2006 but proved unsuccessful in attracting foreign investors in these kinds of investments.
The initiative foresees that state run assets with an area of 500 m2 and more can be given for 1 Euro under tender procedures for investments of Euro 10 million in manufacturing industry and in the garment and footwear industry locally known as “façon” for which government has not set any investment threshold.
The government initiative is an effort to make Albania more attractive to foreign investors after the corporate income tax was raised to 15 percent in 2014, angering the business community which opposed the initiative as making Albania less competitive compared to other regional countries applying 10 percent flat tax regimes.
