TIRANA, Feb.19 – Foreign debt will reach the value of 380 million euro according o the latest government decisions to finance public investments. On the other hand the government has recruited an debt assessment company, Moody’s which is expected to release its first report in less than two months. The report will include realistic estimations on the debt capacity of the Albanian government and thus clear the way for more loan requests. Up until now Albania has received soft loan but currently s interested in commercial loans. The latter have higher interest rates and will ad up to the inherited debt form the Communist times. Debt per capita is estimated to be around $ 530, almost a fourth of revenue per capita. Specialist economist opinions are split on the issue. There are those who consider it a very high figure for a country at grips with a prolonged transition and there are others who believe debt is at normal levels. The rate of debt increase is at 15 percent. BoA report on debt shows that by the end of 2006 foreign debt reached 1.674 billion, an increase of $220million or 15 percent since 2005. In terms of GDP, debt is almost 22 percent. The main debtor is naturally the government with 78 percent of the total share, or around $1.299 billion. Government loans such as those from the IMF, which alone reach 6.1 million are the main elements of foreign debt.
The breakdown of the debt used according to the areas in need follows in the table:
Energy 29 %
Transportation 22 %
Local government 19 %
Urban infrastructure 8 %
Unpaid debt of around $ 84 million keeps being rescheduled at higher interest rates and unfavorable conditions according to data made available from Boa. The main countries to which Albania owns rescheduled debt are Russia and China. After the change of the regime though the direction of debt has shifted to countries like Italy and Germany with 25 and 40 percent of new debt respectively. The private sector has also received loans form abroad. In 2006 this figure increased by $ 53 million
