United States Department of State

Albania United States Department of State

Albania is a relatively small country located in the Western Balkans with a population of approximately 3 million people and a landmass the size of Maryland. Although the country was largely spared from the severe fallout of the 2008 financial crisis, economic output has slowed since 2009, reflecting the prolonged European crisis in neighboring Italy and Greece where close to 1.2 million Albanians live and work and 66 percent of Albanian trade occurs. Faced with public debt ballooning to 70 percent of GDP and large arrears to the private sector, the government began an ambitious fiscal consolidation program and signed a EUR 330 million euro, three-year program with the IMF in February 2014. Albania's GDP grew by an estimated 2 percent in 2014, up from 1.4 percent in 2013 and the government estimates approximately 3 percent growth in 2015. Low petroleum and mineral prices and the ongoing economic crises in Italy and Greece are the two biggest obstacles that may keep Albania from meeting its 2015 growth targets.