Lek gains ground against Euro, US dollar

TIRANA, Dec. 26 – The Albanian national currency, lek, has gained a slight advantage against both the Euro and the US dollar in the past few days, which experts say is a result of inflows of remittances during the year-end holidays when thousands of migrants come home.
Europe’s single currency dropped to 139.53 lek this week, down from an average of 140.11 lek in November 2013 and 139.71 in November 2012, according to Bank of Albania’s fixed exchange rate.
The national currency also gained ground against the US dollar which dropped to 102.08 lek, down from an average of 103.01 lek in November 2012 and 109.01 lek a year ago.
The national currency, lek, has lost around 15 percent during the past five years against the Euro, the main currency used in real estate lending. In November 2008, when the global crisis broke out, the Euro stood at an average of 123.29. Since then it has been on a constant appreciation trend against Lek, climbing to a historically record high of 141.97 lek in June 2011.
The appreciation of the Euro against the Albanian lek is bad news for borrowers in Euro who have their income in lek and government’s external debt payments but good news for Albanian exporters who are already suffering from poor demand in Italy and Greece.