Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

Dear Colleague Minister of Finance and Economy

Dear members of the National Economic Council

Invited,

The National Economic Council is meeting today, following a direct communication and contact for a year of cooperation, with all interest groups and representatives of entrepreneurship, of different sectors of the economy, where it materialized in over 36 technical tables with your representatives and chambers of commerce throughout Albania, we have managed to draft 96 recommendations, which as a joint product have been addressed to the relevant state institutions for implementation.

I mention this fact, because for us as a government, it is very important to guarantee an institutional cooperation and stability for public-private partnership, for the development of economic policies in the country,

as well as to enable the guarantee of dialogue between us, at the highest level of counseling, through transparency for every public decision-making that affects the activity of enterprises in our country.

This meeting of the National Economic Council is organized today not without purpose, by the office of the Minister of State for the Protection of Entrepreneurship, following the legal changes initiated in this mandate and approved in the Law on the functioning and organization of this council , leaving us,

me as the minister responsible for the protection of entrepreneurship and you as a strategic partner with a direct contribution to the country’s economy,

the important task of turning the National Economic Council into an important instrument of cooperation and counseling, above all initiatives and practices that have an impact in the fields of economy .

For the first time, this year and the following year, the Council will be assisted by a group of permanent specialists, in the role of the Council’s technical secretary, who will assist, follow and organize the regular meeting of the Council by presenting for advice issues of importance to entrepreneurship except for the acts that the government would send for advice. While the ad hoc advisory commissions will be a working practice on handling with professionalism and technicality the suggestions coming from the private sector before they turn into recommendations from the office that I lead.

Although during one year, we have managed to contact and carry out visits to a large number of businesses, we have also been present to about 63 thousand businesses in the country, regularly reporting 13 monthly reports, online, which make possible the transparency of our activity in handling and solving about 600 business complaints.

Our objective is to increase direct contact and enable the provision of assistance in real time to entrepreneurs throughout the country, against any bureaucratic barrier or their denunciations for violations during the activity of the public administration, so in their protection and support, the official website at The website of the National Economic Council will be the interactive instrument of this council with the needs, requests, suggestions and comments that interest groups will make, during the public consultation of government acts with an impact on the economy.

As part of the commitment to more transparency and coordination, part of your files is the draft regulation of the operation of the technical secretariat of the National Economic Council, for your review, an act which will be forwarded to the President of this council for approval, after reflection of your remarks.

Before I give the floor to the Prime Minister and at the same time to the Chairman of the National Economic Council, based on the agenda, which is based on the discussion of the 2019 budget project and the fiscal package for this year, I would like to quote that without a doubt both of these important acts of the government are considered a great support of a new social policy as well as in support of the objective of the country’s economic growth of 4.5%, injecting fiscal ease and strengthening the regulatory and controlling role of the state in economic activity.

I would like to share with you the fact that the fiscal package of 2019, which is presented today, is the result of a collaboration between us and of the proposals brought by the enterprise at the sectoral tables organized by the Ministry of Education and Culture, so I am mentioning only three of them as:

• The reduction of the  dividend tax rate from 15% to 8%, this is a request of all associations and interest groups, the implementation of which will increase income and unlock tight liquidity in the tax balance.
• The exemption from VAT of the supply of subcontractors for contractors in the fashion industry has been a systematic demand of this industry in every meeting held with this group. This fiscal ease, among other things, will also affect the improvement of our country’s ranking in the doing business report of 2019, since the VAT exemption of subcontractors will speed up the VAT refund procedure for exporters.  
• Changing the tax scheme for plastic packaging has been another demand of the association of producers and recyclers . The package proposes a new tax level that will be applied on plastic products from 100 Lek to 35 Lek/kg, i.e. 1/3 of the existing level. The impact of this policy will affect the producers in the country, as the link of packaging taxation, becoming the same as the entire Region.

In our attention remains the promotion of production and processing in the country, where we have discussed at the developed tables, the initiatives on the need for:

• Exemption from VAT of the import of agricultural machinery
• Exemption from the import of raw materials for pharmaceutical production factories, for non-dual-use imputations
• Increasing the royalty for the export of chrome from 6% to 9%, to encourage processing in the country.

are undoubtedly a new approach towards strengthening local production and without a doubt promoting competitiveness not only within the country but also in the regional market where we have the ambition to become part of the agreement for the 6 countries of the Western Balkans. 

Finally, I would like to inform the members of the National Economic Council that all your comments, remarks and suggestions for the fiscal package proposed by the government under discussion have been forwarded to the Minister of Finance and Economy by me, and without question, in the words of him, but also during the discussion, the Minister will give his explanations on what the associations have expressed concerns about in this pact, and how it will be reconciled in the future.