TIRANA, Oct. 6 – The number of new businesses during this year has considerably slowed down while deregistrations marked a sharp increase following the late 2015 nationwide campaign against informality that formalized thousands of businesses previously operating informally.
Data published by the National Business Center shows some 18,000 new businesses nationwide registered with tax authorities in the first three quarters of this year, a 42 percent decline compared to the same period last year.
Meanwhile, the number of businesses deregistering rose by an annual 70 percent to 4,700 in the first nine months of this year.
Legal changes have accelerated deregistration procedures to 30 days for small businesses and 90 days for mid-sized and big enterprises.
Albania had some 152,000 active enterprises in 2015 when an aggressive nationwide campaign against informality was launched, a 26 percent increase compared to 2014. An overwhelming majority of 90 percent of them are small enterprises with one to four employees.
However, the sharp increase in registrations was poorly reflected in the 2015 budget which was revised downward three times last year to handle the slowdown in consumption and the slump in international commodity prices, affecting the country’s key oil and mining industries.
