Free Trade Between Turkey And Albania

The agreement, which establishes a free trade zone between Turkey and Albania, will come into force on May 1st. The Free Trade Agreement was signed in Tirana on December 21, 2006.
Turkey’s Foreign Trade Undersecretariat said, in a statement on Tuesday, that the agreement would provide Turkish exporters with an equal opportunity for competition with EU exporters in the Albanian market.
This is an asymmetric agreement in which Albanian products exported to Turkey are free of custom duties. Simultaneously, tariffs on sensitive industrial products imported from Turkey will continue to be reduced and then eliminated after five years. The two countries will trade agricultural products within the quotas specified in the Agreement with no customs fees added. Standard customs duties will be paid on all products not include in the agreement.
The agreement is expected to boost economic and commercial relations between the two countries. It will also encourage Turkish and Albanian businessmen to increase their joint investments.
Turkey is Albania’s third greatest trading partner after Italy and Greece. Turkey-Albania trade volume increased four-fold during the last five years. Just in 2007, the trade volume between Albanian and Turkey increased some 41 percent to 318 million USD, according to the Foreign Trade Undersecretariat figures. The Albanian ACIT (Albanian Center for International Trade) gives a slightly different figure, 346 million USD. Exports by Turkey to Albania rose 38 percent to 294 million USD while imports from Albania climbed 90 percent to 24 million USD in the same year.
According to the Bank of Albania, during 2007 the overall volume of trade was estimated to be around 5.3 billion USD, of which the export volume was approx. 1 billion USD. The European Union remains Albania’s main trade partner with 83 percent of exports and 62.8 percent of imports. Italy and Greece alone account for 44 percent of imports and 76 percent of exports to and from the European Union, or 49 percent of total imports and 83 percent of total exports.