TIRANA, Dec. 15, 2022 – Residents of Albania, historically some of the poorest in Europe, are now more economically miserable than the entire Western Balkan neighborhood, recently-released Eurostat data for 2021 showed.
Albania is last in Eurostat-measured countries for per capita income and strongly trails its neighbors in purchasing power, according to the latest data, which does not include Kosovo or any non-EU former Soviet states.
According to the newly published Eurostat data, in 2021, Albania’s GDP per capita was 32 percent of the European Union average.
Although there is a slight improvement of 1 percentage point compared to the previous year, other countries in the region have moved faster in the so-called convergence process, which means growing at a faster rate than the EU, with the aim of catching up with the European average within a certain period, according to reporting by Monitor magazine.
For example, for North Macedonia the indicator improved from 38 percent of the EU average to 42 percent for the same period. For Serbia, the indicator is 44 percent, for Montenegro 48 percent (from 45 percent in 2020). Even Bosnia and Herzegovina ranks ahead of Albania with 33 percent of the EU average. Data for Kosovo is not available.
In the other indicator, that of Individual Consumption per Capita which measures consumption according to purchasing power parity and the price level, Albania ranks last, with 39 percent of the European Union average, the same as last year and much more lower than the average of 48 percent of EU candidate countries (excluding Turkey).
The poor economic performance of the country and the resulting low wages have led to increased emigration of unhappy workers from Albania.
According to Eurostat, in 2021, as in 2020, Luxembourg and Ireland recorded the highest level of GDP per capita expressed in purchasing power parity in the EU, with 168 percent and 119 percent above the EU average.
The data show substantial differences between EU member states in terms of GDP per capita, used to measure economic activity. After Luxembourg and Ireland, Denmark (33 percent above the EU average), the Netherlands (30 percent above), and Austria and Sweden (both 23 percent above) top the list with a GDP per capita that is over 20 percent above average.
By contrast, Bulgaria (43 percent below the EU average), Greece (36 percent less) and Slovakia (31 percent less) recorded the lowest GDP per capita.
