Albania will need at least 20 years to reach just half of the average per capita income of the European Union. This is the conclusion reached by the World Bank in the report “Review of Public Finances in Albania” as it analyzes the country's economic growth performance and other socio-economic factors.
“Albania achieved upper-middle-income status in 2008, when GDP per capita was only 24 percent of the EU average. Since then, Albania has narrowed this gap at a moderate pace, reaching 33 percent. Economic expansion has occurred mainly in low-productivity, low-wage sectors such as primary production and small-scale tourism, while the informal economy remains at significant levels, at 29–33 percent of GDP. With current policies, Albania will need almost 20 years, almost a generation, to reach just half of the EU average per capita income,” the report says.
The World Bank urges the government to urgently scale up and strengthen Early Childhood Education and Care to support human capital development and labor market participation
Albania should review its fiscal policy, which remains relatively weak, the World Bank estimates, noting that at the current pace of reforms, annual growth is expected to slow in the long term, reaching only 1.5 percent by 2050.
