Our country has entered an electoral year and it seems that economy
will be the strongest card of the majority. But how has the economy really
changed?
To answer many questions on this topic, the Minister of Finances, Arben Ahmetaj, was yesterday’s guest on Sokol Balla’s “Top Story”, on Top Channel.
Minister Ahmetaj said the previous government had emptied the budget and left with a huge debt, 726 million USD in total, even in hospitals and without paying social pensions to people with special needs.
“When they left, in 2013, the economic growth was 1%. Now it is 3.4%. They left a debt at 70.4% of GDP, which was 54% when they took office. All these numbers are certified by the IMF”, Ahmetaj said, adding that the agreement with IMF was the best one they could get.
Ahmetaj said that the IMF agreement was to help surpass a crisis through bold reforms in the Customs system, the energy, pension shceme, territorial administration, law enforcing, and all of that paid up.
Sokol Balla: “When you say you created jobs, do you take into account the ones from the black market, and now may be declared legally?
Minister Arben Ahmetaj: “No, there are 183.000 jobs from the non-agricultural market which are not taken into account for these figures. Consumption has grown significantly, and, according to the Bank of Albania, the main drive is employment.
Minister Ahmetaj said that in case of winning a second term, this government will undertake an initiative for legalizing business capitals.
“It is a delicate matter to pardon capitals with amnesty. Would this be the right thing? It would be, if there was political consensus”.
When asked why hasn’t this government look for this consensus so far, the Minister of Finances answered:
“We have offered consensus when we were in opposition, and we have requested consensus once we took power. We think that we need to keep improving the fiscal discipline and maybe, in a second term, there may be an initiative to look for political consensus, in order to pardon capitals. I don’t think it would be wrong”, he said.
Top Channel
