TIRANA, Nov 4؉n a meeting with members of the American Chamber of Commerce, the Minister of Energy, Trade, and Economy, Mr. Dritan Prifti, reinstated his government’s promise to lower energy costs by reducing the value added tax (VAT) on electricity.
The VAT cut is expected to be around 10% and consumers, businesses, and families will be able to benefit, because they are also faced with increased energy prices in the near future.
However, the VAT cut will only take place in the last two years of the current government mandate, or, in other words, only two years from now.
“It has always been in our plans to lower energy VAT for both our citizens and the business community. However, we have been worried about budget revenues affected from the global economic crisis. Given the situation, we found it hard to cut revenue sources. IMF, too, advised us against such a move. Hence, we decided to delay the VAT reduction for two more years and implement it during the last two years of our mandate,” Prifti said during the meeting.
But Prifti had more good news to add with a more immediate effect. The METE minister announced the government’s decision to cancel VAT on imported machinery and equipment in order to stimulate domestic production.
“This decision has been delayed 6-12 months now. But I am glad to notify you that the government has decided to abolish VAT on machinery and equipment used in manufacturing. We are working on a law-draft that will make this possible,” Prifti declared in front ACC, who have been requesting such a measure for years.
Unique “energy stop shop” will be ready in two years
At the end of the meeting, Prifti announced that a project has started to create a unique energy stop shop to help businesses interested in investing in the energy sector. The new stop shop will facilitate business obligations to acquire all legal requirements, such as licenses and permits, to operate in Albania.
“Within two years we will create a unique stop shop for hydro, wind, bio, and thermo powered energy. We are aware that whoever gets a concession for a hydro power plant, they will need 15 different permits (construction permit, environment permits, etc.) to start their activity. The unique stop shop will issue all these permits two years from now. In this way, we are simplifying the procedure in maximum and save the time for businesses. It will take no more than 30 days for a business to obtain all permits once they have been awarded a concession,” Prifti concluded.
