Albania and Western Balkans included in the long-term crisis

TIRANA, Feb 9 – The Balkans is facing hard times in the wake of a global crisis and recession, according to international experts.
Experts estimate the global economic crisis will take over three years to complete in the USA and the EU. In the peripheral parts of Europe, the Balkans are in first place, the consequences of the crisis will continue to take toll for the more than five years.
Nobel Prize winning American economist Joseph Stiglitz said in a recent conference in Serbia: “This crisis began at the center, in the U.S., but the periphery will be hit the most, because exports and direct foreign investments will suffer.”
Economy pundits predict no rosy future for the Balkans. The crisis is just about to take hold and will last more than we expect.
Apparently, this crisis touches on the vulnerability of the world’s money and by all estimates around 50 million people in the world will become jobless by 2010.
The consequences of the global economic crisis will first be defined as a money crisis, controlled investments and more careful transactions.
Statistics show over 18 of the EU’s 27 member countries will be hit hardest in the first wave of recession. The last 15 years in Greece have seen the gravest economic and political crisis. Upward of 60 percent of Greeks are facing financial problems. Every fourth in ten Greeks can hardly provide basic commodities. The National Bank of Greece called on its banks to discontinue investments in Balkan outlets.
Albania ranks 3rd in the world for corruption and this country too will suffer global crisis with political turmoil.
Until now the Tirana government resists saying they are not hit by the crisis.
The IMF, on the other hand, reduced its further forecast of 3.5-4 percent annual growth this year, though not saying how much, taking into consideration the fact that the global crisis was going too fast to correctly predict.