TIRANA, July 24 – The central Bank of Albania reported this week that the foreign sector of the economy had a negative balance in 2007 due to the country’s high trade deficit.
The bank also reported that incoming money was enough to offset the trade deficit, thus resulting in a total of 207 million euros and a positive balance.
The current deficit to the GDP is estimated at 7.3 percent, the same level as a year ago.
The trade deficit has been regularly increasing in recent years as there is a higher demand for imports to cope with the people’s needs.
But that demand has not been accompanied with the same growth of the export, thus creating a large gap.
In 2006, imports increased because of higher oil prices and also internal factors such as the power crisis that required higher imports.
Imports were 31.8 percent of the GDP in 2006, up from 29.8 percent a year earlier.
The trade deficit had the highest figure yet at 1.7 billion euros.
