Dozens of Gjirokastra businesses go bankrupt

TIRANA, Sept. 19 – As neighboring Greece continues facing its worst financial crisis, southern Albanian businesses operating in the textile industry are finding it more and more difficult to sell their products in Greek markets.
The southern city of Gjirokastra, where many joint Albanian-Greek companies operate in the garment and footwear industry, has been the hardest hit.
Gentian Themollari, the director of the tax office at the municipality of Gjirokastra tells reporters that some 50 businesses have closed down in Gjirokastra because of going bankrupt.
Textile company owners say they have started cutting down staff because their Greek partners have lowered demand and are not respecting contracts.
However, the situation in the southern city of Fier appears quite different. Officials of the National Registration Centre for the region of Fier report some 310 new businesses that have opened during this year. Some 210 of them have been started by returned migrants from Greece and mostly operate in the services sector.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has recently warned Albania is particularly vulnerable to a serious Greek downturn mostly in the form of falling investment, lower remittances, higher costs for local subsidiaries of Greek banks and reduced trade flows. Albania has more than 500,000 immigrants in Greece, who make up 10 percent of Greece’s total workforce. Greece is currently the top foreign investor and the second biggest trade partner after Italy since the early 90s. Greek businesses are present in almost every sector of the Albanian economy, including strategic ones such as telecommunications, banking system, energy, industry, construction, trade and tourism, significantly contributing to the country’s economic growth. Albanian migrants in Greece are the biggest remittance contributors to Albania with around 46 percent of the total.