Good and cautious news on road infrastructure and tourism

TIRANA, June 13 – While the summer season has already started there come some good news for the Albanian road infrastructure.
The European Investment Bank (EIB) on Monday signed a loan with Albania to finance the construction of the motorway by-pass around Fier, one of the country’s main cities. The 35 million euro loan is one of the largest financing transactions ever signed by the EIB in Albania. The motorway connects Albania to its European Union neighbor, Greece, and is situated on Pan-European Corridor VIII, the multimodal axis for South-East Europe. The EIB will also co-finance this investment. The project concerns the construction of 22 kilometers of a dual two-lane motorway on a new alignment around the town of Fier, situated near the coast in central Albania. This is the last remaining section to be improved on the main north-south axis between the capital Tirana, Durr쳠and Greece, for which the EIB has already financed the complementary Levan-Vlore and Fier-Tepelene sections. The purpose is to improve travel times and safety, particularly for through traffic, as well as to alleviate congestion and local environmental nuisances in Fier.
With estimated job creation during the three year construction period of 1 550 new employees per year, the Fier by-pass will also have important social impacts for the labor market.
Since 2000 the EIB has signed over EUR 300 million worth of loans in support of the Albanian economy, particularly contributing to the construction of the national road network.
At the same time Albania and Kosovo signed a deal for the use of the driving license of each other in both countries. That means that drivers in both countries will not need to get any international driving licenses to cross the border and drive in the next country.
That is good especially for hundreds of thousands of Kosovo tourists who enjoy the Albanian seaside especially in summer.
But in another slightly cautious, not to call it negative, news the Albanian transport minister, Sokol Olldashi, said that starting in Autumn all drivers crossing the Nation’s Road, or the Durres-Kukes highway will have to pay a toll, and not a small one but five euros. For sure that will affect more the Kosovar drivers.
It is not clear whether such a move, not a little one, is in the context or has been forecast by the planners of the Albanian tourism institutions who have begun creating a national strategy that would coordinate tourism issues for the rest of the decade, capitalizing on an industry that accounts for 11 percent of the nation’s GDP.
They say they are planning a sustainable long-term development of tourism, instead of hastily-built concrete construction. The plan also covers strategies for the development of mountain tourism, improving services, as well as the promotion of Albania as a tourist destination. Tourism earned 1.2 billion euros in profit last year and employs more than 138,000, accounting for 6 percent of the labor force in Albania. Government statistics show that the number of tourists has increased from just over 1 million six years ago to more than 2.7 million in 2011. For sure it needs not only a strategy but also total commitment to turn into a main resource for the country, a commitment that would come not only from the government and the authorities but also from the common people.