Opposition Socialist Party leader Edi Rama said the key challenge was transforming the agriculture sector from a subsistence production sector into a sustainable, modern and competitive sector
TIRANA, March 12 – With more than one year to go before the next general elections, the opposition Socialist Party has unveiled part of platform on agriculture. Speaking at a round table this week, opposition Socialist Party leader Edi Rama said the key challenge was transforming the agriculture sector from a subsistence production sector into a sustainable, modern and competitive sector.
“Almost half of the country’s population continues living in villages and half of employees are engaged in agriculture. Agriculture continues being a key development sector of the economy accounting for 20 percent of the GDP and 40 percent of the country’s land resources, but unfortunately the average income of households living in the country is not even half of households in towns,” said Rama.
“The small capacity of agriculture farms, the poor technology and lack of cooperation between farmers are some of the factors preventing the sustainable and quick development of the Albanian agriculture,” added Rama.
Although employing 44 percent of the country’s population, almost double compared to other EU potential and candidate countries and eight times more compared to the EU 27 average, Albania’s agriculture sector manages to produce only 19 percent of the gross value added by main sector. The latest data published in a report by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, show agriculture is the second most important sector for the Albanian economy after services which account for 57 percent of the gross value added and employ 36 percent of the population. This is explained by the fact that all people living in rural areas and possessing land in Albania are automatically calculated as self-employed in the agricultural sector.
Albania’s agriculture is the least financed by the government and the banking sector. The Albanian government spends only 0.5 percent of the GDP on agriculture while credit to the agricultural sector represents only 1.3 percent of total credit to businesses, according to central bank data.
