TIRANA, November 13/ATA/ The Bank of Albania in cooperation with the Albanian Association of Banks hosted today in Tirana the conference under the topic, "The role of central banks and banking systems on the path to EU".

Attending this conference were Governor of the Bank of Albania Gent Sejko, the Chairman of the Albanian Association of Banks Bledar Shella, Chairperson of the Economy and Finance Committee Eduard Shalsi, Minister of State and Chief Negotiator with the EU Majlinda Dhuka, Minister of Finance Petrit Malaj as well as other guests from the relevant institutions.

In his speech delivered at the conference, Governor Sejko said that the Bank of Albania is an integral part of the country's EU integration process, in 5 clusters.

"The Bank of Albania has a primary role in the membership negotiations. We are an integral part of the working groups for five clusters and lead two of them, Cluster 4 "Free movement of capital" and Cluster 17 "Economic and monetary policies".

Focusing on development of the economy, Sejko stated that, "Present-day Albania of 2024 offers a completely different economic reality compared to a decade ago, when the country received the status of an EU candidate country. Thus, the volume of economic activity in the country has increased from 10 to 24 billion euros, the unemployment rate has been reduced from 17.5% to 10.7% and the average annual income per capita has increased from 3500 to 9200 euros.

According to him, "Inflation has recorded an average level of 2.5% during this period; the current account deficit has decreased from almost 11% to 2% of GDP; the foreign debt has been reduced from 70% to 44% of GDP while public debt has decreased from 72% to 56% of GDP. In parallel with them, the banking sector has shown stability and improvement of the financial indicators. Thus, the ratio of non-performing loans has decreased from almost 23% to 4.6%, the capital adequacy ratio has reached an average level of 18%, while the banking sector has continued to lend to the economy and display high levels of liquidity and profitability.”

The conference is organized in three sessions, where the main topics of the discussions focus on opening of the green light and beginning in October of the official process of negotiations for membership in the European Union, as well as the role that the central banks have in the integration process and banking sector. /a.f/p.s./