Agriculture Ministry: Farmers registration almost complete

TIRANA, Nov. 13 – The Agriculture Ministry announced that some 70 percent of the registration project for farmers has been completed. Farmers’ assets and activities are being entered into a database in order to efficiently implement the VAT return program beginning on January 1, 2008. Head of Agriculture Policies at the Ministry, Myslym Osmani, explained that the data has been obtained for as many as 360.000 farms in the country. Categories of data include the area surface that farmers own, the type of agriculture they practice and the revenues from their activity, creating a separate file for every farmer. The farmers will receive six percent of their taxes back for products they buy in order to do their own activity in agriculture and cattle management. This same six percent will also be reimbursed to the traders that buy from these farmers, as it becomes part of the sales price.
Every farmer will have his own code to assure a transparent and regular procedure. “This law does not apply to individuals farmers that trade their products directly to the market. It is a practice that will function for those who have contracts as suppliers to firms of food redistribution, marketing and processing and will be active in 2008,” Osmani said.