IMF urges Albanian government to change financial policies

 by Alfred Kola

IMF urged the Albanian government Friday to change its financial policies in order to maintain the country’s stability and economic growth.

Top Channel said Friday that IMF drafted a report monitoring all the European countries where it singled out Croatia and Albania as the only two European developing economies to have deteriorated their finances following the 2008 global crisis, whereas other governments have taken drastic steps to strengthen them.

According to this report, at the end of 2012 Albania’s national debt will rise by 1 pp, reaching 59.2 of the GDP. IMF singles Albania out as the fiscally weakest country in Europe on two grounds:

First, Albania has the second largest public debt among European developing countries, after Hungary, with a significant gap with the countries that follow the list.

Second, short-term debt makes up a large share of the Albanian total public debt. It is estimated that 37% of the Albanian total is short term debt of less than a year maturity. This figure is 4 times higher that the region’s average, a fact that keeps the Albanian government increasingly in search for new sources of money needed to pay these debts.