TIRANA, Nov 25 – Different figures from the international community on Albania’s growth next year, not inline with those coming from the Tirana executive, but still lower than them.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said growth in the EBRD region was likely to fall sharply in 2009 in the face of global economic slowdown and financial market turbulence and it urged the countries where it invests to place a high priority on the stabilization of their banking systems.
The EBRD’s Transition Report 2008, which tracks the economic performance and progress on reforms across EBRD countries, predicted overall growth would fall to 6.3 per cent in 2008 from 7.5 per cent in 2007 and drop further to 3.0 per cent in 2009.
The EBRD’s chief economist Erik Berglof said continued growth in the region’s economy in the early stages of the global crisis was a testament to remarkable reform achievements. But the region now faced a much less benign international environment and outflows of capital from emerging markets, risk aversion and the recession in key OECD economies would test the resilience of transition countries.
Growth in Albania is expected to increase to 6.1 percent in 2008 from 6 percent in 2007 and drop further to 5 percent in 2009.
Peter Sanfey, EBRD Lead Economist covering south-eastern Europe, said: “Albania is continuing to make good progress on a number of fronts, but more efforts are needed to improve the business environment and upgrade the quality of infrastructure if the impressive growth of recent years is to be maintained in the future.”
Albanian government has insisted that growth next year will again be 6.2 percent.
.
