Difficult To Do Business in Albania

World Bank published for the fifth year in a row its report “Doing Business 2008”. The report ranks the national economies on their ease of doing business. A high ranking on the ease of doing business index means the regulatory environment is conducive to the operation of business. The index averages the country’s percentile rankings on 10 topics, made up of a variety of indicators, giving equal weight to each topic. The Doing Business 2008 report covers the period April 2006 to June 2007.
The report confirms the objections of the Albanian businesses and the IMF latest warnings. Albania is number 136 out of 178 economies that were studied by the special World Bank team. Albania scores extremely bad in two very important indicators. According to the first “Dealing with licenses”, Albania is ranked as number 168 or 6 places lower than in Doing Business 2007. If you intend to build a warehouse (with an estimated value of ALL 40 million) you should complete 24 procedures. The whole procedure takes 331 days. However, it should be noted that the data for this indicator were collected in January 2007 before the introduction of the One-Stop-Shop that eases the registration and cuts down the duration of procedures by some 50-55 days.
The second “bad” indicator is related to the protection of investors. Albania is ranked as number 165, holding the same position as in the Doing Business 2007. The indicator makes no difference between the domestic and foreign investors. Montenegro is ranked as number 19, while FYROM is number 83. Albania scores only 2.7 at the indicator Strength of Investor Protection compared to 5.0 for the countries in the region and 6.0 for the OECD countries. Closing of a business is also problematic. Not because you need to complete a large number of procedures, but because it is still unregulated by the Albanian law. In fact, a new draft law aiming to resolve the bankruptcy problems of businesses has just reached the Parliament. The World Bank report shows that country has made significant progress in one sector, trading across borders. The number of documents and the number of days required to export or import is relatively low, according to the data provided by World Bank.
Albania also has made some improvement regarding the taxation of business; however, it is still ranked as number 118 at this indicator.