By Marsida Gjoncaj
When Ole Martin Siem from Norway first founded Frupor Ltd. he was thinking of taking advantage of the favorable climate of the Iberian Peninsula, the comparatively low land price and cost of labor in order to grow vegetables during winter months to be sold in Northern Europe. Now, 20 years later, he’s trying to do the same, in Albania. Frupor’s pilot project consists of creating a lab farm in Fier, where students from the Agricultural University of Tirana can do their internships and farmers can sell their produce to this farm. Bujar Zhuri, manager of the Nordic Invest Group, a Norwegian-Albanian business consulting company, explains that Frupor intends to build two or three large farms in Myzeqe so that farmers can produce and export their produce to the European market. “The market is all set; the company is already certified by European standards, so all that Frupor needs is a little collaboration from the Albanian side” noted Zhuri.
Agriculture is not the only field foreign businessmen are interested to invest in within Albania. Other sectors include industry, energy and tourism. Especially tourism, since Albania is considered to be Europe’s last secret, a tourist destination characterized by an unspoiled scenery of mountains, ancient villages, castles and a pristine 450 km coastline. Tourism is the most attractive prospect as it can combine adventure holidays with eco-tourism, rural tourism, cultural tourism and cross-border tourism and also opportunities to develop agro-tourism in Albania.
But things do not seem to be very easy. “It is true that many foreign businessmen want to invest in Albania for many reasons. First because we have the lowest cost of labour in the region, second because at the moment we are a stable developing economy, as well as an important gateway to South East Europe. On the other hand, our climate and geographical position is ideal for the development of agriculture. Nevertheless, at the time we’re experiencing some problems with the legislation. Since the property titles are still chaotic, many investors think twice before spending a lot of money on land they are no sure will be theirs. On the other hand, another crucial problem is time. The public administration does not work as fast as we’d like. There are a lot of interesting projects ready to be implemented and waiting for the administration to accelerate the pace. People might find work if these projects are implemented, farmers can actually export their produce instead of failing because of the huge imports on food products that Albania currently has. So what we are practically asking for is just a faster pace for the implementation of the projects and clear property titles so that the land market would be safer and more competitive,” Zhuri adds.
Company profile
The Nordic Invest Group is the first Norway-Albanian owned Business Consultancy and Brokerage Company in Albania focusing on business consultancy, investment projects, legal consulting, real estate and tourism. Nordic Invest Group is a limited company established in June 2008 in Albania. Nordic Invest is headed by Norwegian associates working in the Albanian market for many years and offering “foreign” versus “local” practice in the business and consulting market. NIG provides consulting, planning, research and support services for all size businesses. Its management consultants specialize in solving complex business problems and offering expert management advice. NIG offers lawyers real estate and investment consulting, as well.
