Bode: Economic growth down to 1.5%
11/01/2013 00:00
Linda Rama: Between Family, Work and Albania’s Future 18/08 14:30
The Minister of Finances, Ridvan Bode, accepted that the economic growth
for 2012 decreased to the lowest level since the beginning of the
crisis, beyond every government assessment.
“The Albanian economy had a growth of 2 or 1.5% for 2012, proving the best dynamics in the region. It is lower than the historic average, but even lower than before the crisis”, Bode declared.
Although he notes that Albania in 2012 has had a higher growth than the other economies of the region, Bode says that the prolonged crisis of the Eurozone has weakened our economy.
“The prolonged crisis has brought a modest increase, based on capacities that we thought would be created if the crisis was not global”, Bode declared.
Besides the economic slowdown, the crisis has brought a deterioration of the fiscal indicators. The Ministry of Finances calculates that by the end of the year, the public debt reached 61.9% of the GDP.
Bode says that one of the reasons is the guarantee that the state gives for public enterprises, and it is not related with the loans.
“It has been declared on the media that the government is taking a lot of loans. It is not true. The loan is 3.2% of the GDP. The last year of the Socialist government had 5.1% of the GDP in loans”, Bode declared.
With this debt increase, the Minister of Finances reiterated his position that the government will not take in consideration any request for increasing taxes, since that would mean damaging the economy even more.
Top Channel
