Albania’s Current Account Gap Widens

TIRANA, March 9 – BoA’ s data released last week showed that Albania’s current account deficit rose by 13.1 percent to 556.4 million euro ($731.4 million) last year.
The current account gap equaled 7.6 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), the bank said in a statement. “The high trade deficit last year has offset the positive effect of the significant decrease of the services gap and the increased net factor income and remained the main cause for the rising current account deficit,” the statement added. Albania’s merchandise trade turnover totaled 2.9 billion euro last year. Imports, estimated at 2.3 billion euro, were 309 million euro more compared to 2005. Exports, worth some 631 million euro, rose by 100 million euro from the previous year.
There was a 19 percent rise in exports and an imports annual increase of 15 percent. Hence, the high imports value caused the 14 percent rise in the trade gap.
The gap in the services balance was 65.4 million euro last year, down 53.4 percent from the previous year. The breakdown of the figures shows that the export of services was dominated by tourism. The sector generated 804 million euro in revenue, which is 28 percent more than the revenue from exports of goods. The net factor income from abroad rose 58.2 percent to 215.3 million euro last year. Last year’s FDI were up 15.9 percent from 2005.