Remittance In Albania

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Remittances are the main mechanism for the alleviation of poverty in Albania and for increasing family income in particular. A qualitative poverty assessment study by the World Bank, conducted in ten districts of Albania in the year 2011, show that emigration and remittances are the main factor distinguishing a poor family from non-poor family. The study shows that many people distinguish the rich from the poor by the number of family members who emigrated. Remittances have also played a major role in financing imports and covering the commercial deficit. They have played an important role in maintaining the exchange value of local currency and for the fast development of construction and services sectors. Thus they have had a positive effect on the macroeconomic stability of the country. As a consequence remittance have been the main factor determining one of the characteristics of Albanian transition, the extroversion of economy, which means that internal consumption is bigger than national production. Whereas from the point of view of injection of foreign financial flows, compared to other east and central transition economies, Albania is the only country similar in this respect to East Germany*. Meanwhile the growing of foreign banks in Albania, activity of international agencies such as Western Union and Money Gram, or grater engagement in the future for the Albanian post office, will facilitate Albania remittance transfer to homeland. From a quantitative point of view, according to data from Bank of Albania, it results that Albanian emigrants remittances transferred to the homeland through the banking system and other agencies has increased and in the year 2011 they represented 39.3% of the total sent remittances, from 7.5 per cent in the year 1994 per cent and in the year 2011 with 39.3 per cent of total sent remittances**. While in the Despite the importance
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