Albania is becoming promised land for new wave of Italian migrants, according to the neighboring country’s leading newspaper, as Albanian migrants also hurting in crisis-hit neighbors.
TIRANA, Nov. 13 – In the early 1990s when the communist regime collapsed it was the Albanians who left the country in a mass exodus to Italy. Twenty years on, a wave of Italians is coming to Albania as Italy faces its worst recession since World War II.
“The country which twenty years ago sparked despair, is now hosting Italian immigrants. At the beginning there were entrepreneurs thirsty for low-cost labor force, but today there are also workers, craftsmen, electricians, plumbers, welders, mechanics, marble workers but even lawyers, doctors, architects and students,” says Italian daily La Repubblica in a recent article titled “Italians in Albania: We are the migrants now.”
Roberto Cannata, 49, an Italian chef who has opened his own restaurant in downtown Tirana, says you can revive in one hour of flight. “I worked in the kitchen for 16 hours a day for quite a little. Stifled by taxes and disappointed. I was one of the many there, here I am one of the few,” says Cannata, 49, who comes from Viterbo in central Italy.
The typical Albanians migrating to Italy are men aged between 25 to 50, mostly from northern Italy.
Italians also dominate the call center business in Albania, which has become the main employer of Albania youth, most of whom speak fluent Italian.
La Repubblica estimates there are some 3,000 Italians living in Albania, of whom 500 are resident workers and around 1,000 are students mostly studying medicine at the Zoja e Keshillit te Mire University which has a twinning deal with the University of Rome Tor Vergata.
Italian entrepreneurs in Albania date from the early 1990s when the communist regime collapsed to recent arrivals. Cristina Busi, the owner of Coca Cola Albania, has been doing business in Albania since 1991. Francesco Becchetti, the owner of new Agon Channel TV, is one of the latest Italian entrepreneurs in Albania.
Italian companies dominate the list of foreign companies operating in Albania, according to data published by the country’s Institute of Statistics on the foreign companies and the joint ventures in Albania. Data show Italy, which is Albania’s top trade partner, had 1,460 enterprises operating in Albania at the end of 2012, accounting for 38 percent of total foreign enterprises or joint ventures in Albania.
Italy is Albania’s top trade partner and one of the key foreign investors in Albania.
