World Bank: Necessary measures to cope with the global crisis

Oct 13. According to World Bank experts, the Albanian government should improve social assistance programs for those threatened by poverty and must also low customs tariffs for food articles. Such measures would soften the impact of the price crisis on food articles, which has thrown into mayhem the financial global system in general and in US and Europe in particular. WB experts also added that increased investments in the agriculture sector should also help against the crisis. The global market, including the Albanian market, suffered a huge increase in the late 2007 and the first half of 2008. The crisis persists through the 2d half of 2008 and accompanied by the short lived fuel crisis this summer and by the latest crisis in the financial sector, it seriously threatens the global macro-economic stability.
According the World Bank, three are the steps that should be taken in Albania. First, better social assistance programs should be created to assists those more in need in the face of the crisis. Second, short-term administrative measures, such as low customs tariffs and taxes over agriculture products, should be implemented immediately. The above administrative measures should be only short term due to the fact that they come with huge fiscal costs and relocation of budget funds. Third, necessary steps should be taken to increase the supply of agriculture products in a middle-term timeline. This measure, insist the experts, will stop the tendency for lower future public and private investments in the agriculture sector due to the high prices of the present. More investments in irrigation and infrastructure will greatly improve productivity in agriculture.