Albania’s trade exchange map: ALL 20b more goods towards EU, regional trade deficit up
During 2017, Albania experienced a significant increase in exports to EU countries, by 11% or ALL 20.8 billion more.
This growth is especially owed to the strengthened trade relations between Albania and some countries in particular, such as Italy, Spain and Germany.
Exports to Italy, the country that is also Albania’s main trading partner, reached ALL 146 billion, up by 9.9% compared to 2016.
As this is the largest increase in net terms, in terms of percentage exports to Spain have recorded the biggest improvement, increasing by 87.4% to almost ALL 15 billion.
An increase has been reported even in trade exchanges with regional countries in both directions, especially with Kosovo.
Albanian exports to the Western Balkans have reached at least Lek 40 billion, up by ALL 7 billion.
But despite the fact that imports to all countries except Croatia are expanding, there is also an increase in imports, which amounted to ALL 50.3 billion.
This has deepened the trade deficit with the Western Balkan countries, which is already over ALL 10 billion.
Also in favor of the growth of the deficit was trade with countries such as Turkey and Switzerland.
Both countries have benefited from significantly increasing exports to Albania and buying less goods compared to 2016.
Turkey closed the year as Albania’s second biggest partner in imports, passing both Germany and China, thanks to increased purchases in clothing and footwear, as well as machinery and chemical products.
As far as continents are concerned, there is a significant increase in exchanges with African countries.
Imports from these countries, particularly from Egypt and Algeria, increased by about 47% to over ALL 12.2 billion.
A similar growth in relative terms has also occurred in the export of goods to the African continent, an increase of 33.8%, reaching a total of ALL 1.8 billion.
With two American continents, however, there is an increase in exports, affected exclusively by shipments to the US.
Imports from these countries in total have decreased but there is a strong growth of 90.3% with Canada and a 22.1% decline with the United States.
In the Asian continent, imports from Malaysia have doubled, reaching ALL 1.7 billion. There is also an increase in trade exchanges with Israel and Japan.
SCAN
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