The fiscal and criminal amnesty aimed at legalizing the income of immigrants will not legalize every source, declared the Minister of Finance and Economy, Delina Ibrahimaj during a conference on the progress of the economy, while adding that during the third quarter an accelerated positive progress of the economy is expected.

“From the population questionnaire, over 60% of the population expressed that they were in favor of fiscal and criminal amnesty in order to legalize the income of immigrants. This law operates within the borders of Albania and will be applied to Albanian citizens,” said Ibrahimaj.

“We had an increase in the construction sector. In the 8-month period, we had an increase of 15% in the construction sector, while the production sector increased by 25% in terms of turnover, service sector 13%, the transport sector 35% and the trade sector 29%,” the minister emphasized.

“As for tourism, we had an increase in tourism turnover by 30% for the June-August period, or Lek 13.4 billion more than a year ago. The positive expectation for the third quarter is also related to the number of businesses we have registered,” said Ibrahimaj.

“In August, the stock of businesses registered according to the National Business Center is 126,111 businesses, about 4.9% higher than August 2021. As a level of new businesses this year, we have an increase of 10.2%. There is a decrease in suspended businesses, by 7.6%,” added Ibrahimaj.

“It has been a dry year, we imported energy. Now the import of energy has decreased. Income is 15.9% more,” she highlighted.

Ibrahimaj also said that the Albanian economy grew by 2.23% in the second quarter of this year, compared to the same period a year ago.

Ibrahimaj said that growth slowed down in comparison to the first quarter, when the level was 6.5%.

The sectors that contributed most to the economic growth of the country were trade, transport, accommodation and food services, as well as real estate and professional and administrative services, Ibrahimaj said.

A preliminary estimation released by INSTAT earlier this year said that in 2021, the GDP of Albania increased by 8.54%, after decreasing by 3.48% in 2020 due to the negative impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Despite the strong post-pandemic recovery of the country's economy in 2021, for 2022 the World Bank has projected economic growth of 3.2% for Albania, due to the impact of global developments and the conflict in Ukraine.

The International Monetary Fund expects Albania's economy to expand by 2% in 2022, while the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development estimates that Albania's economic growth in 2022 will increase by 3%.