TIRANA, Jan. 29 – Maritime, air and rail operators in Albania faced mixed results in 2018 when freight transport declined and the handling of passengers only significantly increased for the country’s sole international airport.
Data published by INSTAT, the state-run statistical institute, shows the volume of maritime transport in the country dropped by 3.3 percent to around 3.9 million metric tons in all four ports. The decline is mainly related to the mid-2017 completion of steel pipes imports from Germany to build the Albanian section of the major Trans Adriatic Pipeline scheduled to bring Caspian gas to Europe by 2020.
The Durres Port handled around 13,000 pipes, bends and various equipment and machinery weighing more than 200,000 metric tons for 15 months until mid-2017, according to Switzerland-based TAP consortium.
The country’s largest, Durres Port handles the overwhelming 90 percent of maritime freight transport with the three other Shengjin, Vlora and Saranda ports sharing a 10 percent share.
Around 60 percent of Albania’s exports, whose main destination is Italy, were handled through ports in 2018.
Meanwhile, road handling of exports also rose by 16 percent in 2018, mainly reflecting higher exports to neighbouring Kosovo, the second most important destination of Albanian exports. Albania’s exports to Kosovo have received a major boost since last November when Kosovo introduced tariffs on imports from Serbia, its main trading partner which it declared independence from a decade ago in retaliation for Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina’s efforts in blocking the recognition of Kosovo’s independence and its membership in key international organizations.
Albania’s exports rose by 14 percent in 2018 fuelled by a hike in energy-related products such as electricity and oil, minerals and steel following favorable weather conditions and a hike in commodity prices that defied the negative effects of Europe’s single currency losing around 7 percent against the Albanian lek. Yet, Albania’s exports covered only around half of the country’s imports which rose by an annual 2.4 percent.
The number of passengers from the Durres, Vlora and Saranda ports almost stood at a standstill in 2018 as it only rose by 1 percent to 1.5 million. The Durres and Vlora ports handle passengers to Italian ports of Bari, Ancona and Trieste, while the small southern Saranda port mostly handles passengers to the Greek island of Corfu, which also serves as a hub for international tourists to southern Albania, where the country lacks an airport.
Last year was positive also for the country’s air transport industry which handled 2.95 million passengers through the Tirana International Airport, the country’s sole international airport.
TIA, which since mid-2016 has been handled by a Chinese consortium switching hands from previous German and Canadian concessionaires, saw a 12 percent hike in the number of passengers, mainly heading to and from Italy, Albania’s main trading partner and the host of some 500,000 Albanians.
The hike in air passengers also reflects positive tourist season which authorities say brought 5.9 million tourists and generated more than €1.5 billion in travel income, around 10 percent of the country’s GDP.
Meanwhile, railway passenger and freight transport continue registered historic lows, reflecting the critical situation in the country’s state-run rail sector that has not seen major investment in the past three decades.
Only around 76,000 passengers travelled by train 2018, up 15 percent compared to 2017, but down from 198,000 in 2015 and about 4 million in the early 1990s soon after the collapse of the communist regime which banned private ownership of cars and public trains and buses were the key mode of transport.
Rail freight transport, mainly carried out through Montenegro, slightly recovered to 199,000 metric tons in 2018, about half compared to a decade ago and eight times less compared to the early 1990s.
Albania has secured €90 million in financing to rehabilitate its key Tirana-Durres railway segment and link it to the country’s sole international airport in a project that will revitalize the country’s degrading railway system that has almost seen no investment at all during the past quarter of a century following the collapse of the communist regime.
The European Commission describes Albania’s transport sector as insufficiently developed, saying that “better connections to neighbouring countries and the EU transport network still need to be established to reduce transportation costs and facilitate trade.”
