TIRANA, March 2 – The Albanian government is seeking to attract foreign investment in the tourism sector by offering potential investors state property in priority areas for a symbolic 1 Euro for up to 99 years in return for investment of more than 50 million euros. The new government decision made this week has detailed the rules and procedures to make available state-owned property in priority areas for tourism development following the approval of a new law on tourism last year. The rules envisage the investor will have to deposit a 10 percent investment guarantee before the signing of the contract.
The new concession offer is a return to the Albania 1 Euro initiative, initially launched in 2006 by the now opposition Democratic Party for investment in several key sectors but which failed to attract any significant FDI.
Experts consider the new law a good opportunity to attract strategic foreign investors considering the chaotic development of tourism and urban massacres in the past two decades in the key tourist destinations and that a considerable part of the Albania’s coastline remains virgin.
Bank of Albania data shows the foreign investment stock in hotels and restaurants dropped to 60 million euros in 2014, down from 94 million euros in 2008 just before the onset of the global financial crisis.
The travel and tourism industry, which employs around 41,000 people in Albania, is seen as one of the most promising sectors to compensate for construction and remittances-fuelled growth in the pre-crisis years.
Tourism revenue registered a record high of €1.2 billion in 2014 when more than 3.6 million foreign tourists visited Albania, according to data published by the central bank and INSTAT.
