Tirana Times
TIRANA, March 14 – Albania’s economic competitiveness gets bad grades in the financial sector, macroeconomic stability, higher education, property rights and other important indicators, but there is significant improvement in ease of doing business.
Those are some key findings from the Global Competitiveness Report presented at the World Economic Forum. It offers an evaluation of economic competitiveness of 139 countries worldwide. Among Balkan countries, Albania has big problems with corruption, access to financing, property rights and intellectual property, says the American Chamber of Commerce in Albania referring to the report. There were three indications that cast a heavy burden on Albania’s competitiveness in terms of foreign investment. The ownership deeds, financial services and financing of enterprises with suitable options are three indicators listed Albania near the bottom of the list.
Compared to other countries in the region, according to indicators considered in the report, Albania lies mainly in the second half of the list. Compared with Macedonia, Montenegro, Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia, the country appears only slightly better than these last two. But in some items, only manages to pass Bosnia.
In the summary of the total index, Albania is 89th among 139 countries. Macedonia is 79th, Montenegro 49th, Croatia 77th, while Serbia and Bosnia are stuck in 96th and 102nd respectively. When it comes to higher education and specialized training, Albania ranks 84th, passing only Bosnia’s 88th ranking compared to the region.
It seems that the Albanian economy, if it were to compete with the other Balkan countries could only beat Bosnia in a lot of the indicators. So only Bosnia fares worse on the issue of financial markets, where Albania ranks 100th while Bosnia is 113rd.
Every other country in the region has more positive results. Albania also performed poorly in terms of macroeconomic stability. It stands in 101st place in the index, better than only than Serbia in the region.
Property rights hurt standing
The most negative assessment made by the report when it comes to Albania is the poor property rights record, which hits the investment climate and hurts competitiveness.
The report shows particularly bad performance in some sectors that are very important for attracting foreign investment. Property rights in Albania ranked 116th among 139 countries. That is also the lowest position in the entire Western Balkans. This item is considered in the index, as one of the most important elements in terms of foreign investment.
The country also ranks 101st for the protection of intellectual property. The budget balance in the country is set in 110th place, also one of the lowest positions not only in Europe, but for the region of the Western Balkans too.
Enrollment in higher education has seen a positive change which is reflected in the index.
The government has recently undertaken a reform in education, but experts must wait for the implementation of the reform see whether the anticipated effects will improve the level of enrollment in higher education. Another problem is the large number of people still living in rural areas, which is seen in the higher portion of the GDP from agriculture, compared with neighboring countries.
Regarding the effectiveness of anti-monopoly practices, Albania does better only than Bulgaria in the region, at 109th. The Competition Authority has set hundreds of millions in fines, but the money collected stands at zero, because courts have frozen the issues, or because court decisions have gone against the authority.
The availability of financial services is one of the indicators of competitiveness in which Albania fares worse than the majority of countries involved in the study. Albania is 128th out of 139 countries. This result indicates financial services in Albania are extremely behind developed markets. Functional financial services are among the most important requirements of Western investors, in countries still in economic transition, such as Albania. And while financial services seem to be really bad, their cost is very high (placing Albania 113th). In this assessment, Albania only performs better than Bosnia.
But the worst indicator for Albania, which puts it at the very bottom of the list, is the financing of enterprises through the local market securities, bills, bonds, property titles, shares etc. Albania ranks 137th, leaving behind only Burundi and Angola.
