TIRANA, Dec. 1 – The ruling Democratic Party-led coalition approved last week in principle the 2011 draft budget in a prolonged parliamentary session amid heated debates which degenerated into personal attacks. The 2011 budget, considered the biggest ever at 4 billion dollars, was approved by 74 votes to 1 while the opposition refused taking part in the vote, describing the budget as electoral ahead of next year’s local elections and based on distorted figures.
The 2011 bill was discussed again this week in detail in all parliamentary committees, where hearings were held with representatives of some independent institutions demanding additional funds, before receiving the final approval.
Government says the budget will continue supporting infrastructure and wage and pension increases, keep public debt and deficit in check.
Government expects a 4.1 percent growth in 2010, 5 percent in 2011, 6.1 percent in 2012 and 0.1 percent more in 2013.
Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects the Albanian economy to grow by 3 percent this year and 3.5 percent in 2011 under the new estimates, yet, almost twice less compared to government’s GDP projections.
While government says the 2010 public debt will be at 59.5 percent of the GDP, IMF’s prediction for 2010 is 62.8 percent, 2.8 percent more than in 2009. The 2011 government expectations are to lower it to 59 percent of the GDP, before dropping it to 56 percent in 2012 and 54 percent in 2013.
Meanwhile, the opposition Socialist Party (SP) expects the country’s economy to grow by 0 to 1 percent in 2010 and 0 to 2 percent in 2011, twice less than the IMF projections and almost three times less than government expectations.
Konfindustria
Albania’s business community represented by Konfindustria says it agrees in principle with the 2011 budget but suggested that more investments should have been allocated to tourism and infrastructure to improve the efficiency of funds.
“The division of public investments in quite a big number of projects all over the country, moreover under conditions of very weak supervisory public institutions risks lowering the efficiency of investments and lead to abuse of public funds,” says Konfindustria.
The Association says more funds should have been scheduled to build sewage plants eliminating pollution on the country’s beaches.
