TIRANA, Feb. 24 – According to INSTAT’s latest report, January witnessed an increase in inflows of foreign nationals as well as outflows of Albanian citizens to other countries. Data showed that the number of Albanian and foreign nationals entering the Albanian territory in January 2020 totaled 693,956, which, in comparison to January 2019, indicates an increase by 20.9 percent.
In January 2020, the number of foreign nationals entering the country was 249,461, increasing by 19.1 percent since January 2019. However, more people are leaving the country as outflows of Albanian and foreign nationals during January 2020 totaled 842,694, up by 21.5 percent compared to the same period a year earlier.
INSTAT reports that the number of Albanian citizens leaving the territory of Albania during January 2020 was 531.065, increasing by 17 percent since January of the previous year. Meanwhile, the number of foreigners leaving the territory of Albania during January 2020 was 311,629, increasing by 29.9 percent since 2019.
After a significant decline in 2019, Poland was among the countries with the highest outflows of citizens to Albania during the previous month, with an increase by 38.9 percent. On the other hand the number of Swiss nationals who entered Albania declined by 1.2 percent, accounting for the lowest amount of total foreign national inflows compared to January 2019.
Kosovo accounted for the highest outflows of citizens to Albania, making up 31 percent of the latter’s total inflows, followed by Greece with 39 thousand nationals or 15.5 percent of the total and citizens from Macedonia, which accounted for 15.2 percent of total inflows.
A significant amount of nationals from Montenegro, Italy, the U.K., and the U.S. who entered Albania last month was also pointed out in the report.
As regards the purpose of visit, about 93 percent of foreign nationals travelled to Albania for personal reasons, such as to visit relatives, while 3 percent of foreign nationals entered the country for professional reasons and 4.6 percent passed through Albania as a transit point. Those whose purpose of visit was business-related increased significantly in January, precisely by 53.1 percent in comparison to the same period a year earlier.
