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| illustration of the graph representing the declining economy (archive) |
Over 1.3 billion euros 'are missing' for the first 9 months of the year, from the main channels that supply the Albanian economy with foreign currency: exports, foreign investment, remittances, and tourism. The data combined by INSTAT and the Bank of Albania speak of a dramatic decline in each of these sources, affected by the pandemic, as the
A2CNN reports.
Foreign trade has been paralyzed in recent months as major partners such as Italy and Spain face a major wave of infections. For the period January-October, the country exported about 221.3 billion leks of goods, about 31 billion less than a year ago. In foreign currency, this translates into about 250 million euros of missing sales for Albanian companies.
The Bank of Albania, on the other hand, states that Foreign Direct Investment shrank to 691 million euros for the 9-month period, 110 million euros less than the same period last year.
A similar decline is reported for the income from emigrants, who brought to their families 470 million euros, about 50 million euros less.
The biggest blow certainly came from tourism, the sector most affected by the pandemic. Despite the patriotic tourism from Kosovo that contributed to revenues of 732 million euros by September, the figure is less than half of the expenditures made by tourists last year. As a result, the sector raised 904m euros less. The extraordinary lack of this cash flow will be felt next year as well when the post-crisis economic recovery is expected to begin.
