TIRANA, Feb.21- Business companies of the clothing production have started negotiations with experts form the Finance Ministry in order to revise some of the taxation obligations such as profit tax, social security contributions and other facilities related to employment. Head of the Chamber of Commerce in Tirana,, Gjok롕ldedaj, said that the negotiations have been conducted in a spirit of collaboration and strengthened the dialogue between entrepreneurs and the state in order to increase the results for both sides. The chamber of commerce is especially supporting business in the field of revisions for the profit tax which has been unified recently to the flat rate of 10 percent. Clothing business has more than 5000 employees. One of the requests presented in the negotiation is about exceptions to this tax for a period of five years in order to assist this sector which is among the few exporting one in the country. Another problem for this particular industry is the formalizing of reference salaries which treat their employees as the rest. However, individuals employed in the clothing sector are paid according to individual work norms and so the taxes would be based don a fiction sum. This would increase the total cost of production for the business.
The industry
The textile industry sector works at 1000 percent of this capacity for the fason method of production. Ready made raw material comes from abroad, is processed in Albania at extremely cheap labor cost and then gets re-exported for trading purposes at the material country of origin. Official statistics say that this sector plus that of leather fason is responsible in 2007 for more than 60 percent of expert revenues. It is extended throughout the countries in more than 450 facilities of different companies. The client companies of Albanian subcontracted firms set the prices of the labor force. 65-70 percent of the cost of production of these textiles is made up by labor costs and 15-20 percent of this particular expense relates to contributions paid for social security.
