TIRANA, Jan. 17 – Economic and geopolitical risks continue to top Albanians’ concerns over doing business in their country in the next decade, with terrorist attacks emerging as one of the top three problems, according to a Global Risks report published by the World Economic Forum.
Although the country has been immune to terrorist attacks until now and there have been no new reported cases of Albanians joining the so-called Islamic State, ISIS, attacks in Western countries and Turkey and the Middle East seem to have frightened Albanians.
In addition, the run-up to the Nov. 12 Albania-Israel World Cup qualifier leading to several arrests in Albania and Kosovo over an alleged planned terrorist attack proved terrorism is not only a potential but also real threat to Albania, experts have said.
About 48 percent of the Albanian respondents in the World Economic Forum survey rated terrorist attacks as one of their five global risks of highest concern for doing business in country.
In last year’s survey, terrorism was among the top five concerns for only 36 percent of respondents.
Failure of a major financial mechanism or institution was rated at the same level with terrorist attacks as a concern for 48 percent of respondents.
The major global concerns for Albanians about doing business in the country for the next ten years include fiscal crises and illicit trade.
Fiscal crises, involving excessive debt burdens that generate sovereign debt or liquidity crisis was a top concern for 62 percent of respondents.
Illicit trade, involving large-scale activities outside the legal framework such as illicit financial flows, tax evasion, human trafficking, counterfeiting or organized crime, were a top concern for about half of the respondents.
Extreme weather events, data fraud or theft and energy price shock are also among the top ten global risk concerns for doing businesses in Albania.
Failure of climate-change mitigation and adaptation, biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse as well as food crises are perceived as global risks with a small impact for doing business in Albania.
Large-scale involuntary migration as well as unemployment and underemployment, two interrelated factors reflecting Albania’s high migration rates, are equally rated as the 11th top concern for 15.5 percent of respondents.
