Since 2015 about 2,000 small businesses have reportedly closed or temporarily suspended their activity in Shkodër, in the northern center of Albania, due to economic difficulties.
Traders say that on the one hand, the government says that taxes are lowered, but immediately a new and higher tax comes out, at a time when purchasing power has dropped significantly.
In the Zdrale market, the largest in Shkodra, today most are shops that are let out for rent, while the few that are open are run by pensioners.
These latter state that the government had promised to waive their payments of social security contributions for working pensioners, but today they are anyway forced to pay contributions to the state.
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