AmCham Voices Concerns over Corruption, Tax, & Legislation

TIRANA, February 10

Corruption leads the rating of the main obstacles for American investors in Albania, the AmCham Chair, Enio Jaco said on Monday during the annual analysis of the American Chamber of Commerce in Albania.
He highlighted that corruption, a problem that everyone acknowledges, is a serious obstacle for foreign investors. Moreover, he added that monopolies and unfair competition are among the main issues ranked on annual surveys.
Further on, Jaco added that taxes are a major concern among investors, who say that high tax rates made Albania less competitive compared to the countries of the region.
Moreover, the AmCham chair pointed out some concerns on issues AmCham faces in its activities related to legislation in Albania.
“Unfortunately, we notice that it has become very difficult to improve legislation in Albania. There are serious problems with the public consultation process. To put it simply: the public administration, with rare exceptions, does not respect the Law on Public Notification and Consultation,” Jaco said.
“This applicable law obliges the public body that drafts new legislation to give interested parties at least 20 working days to file their opinion, or, in the case of complex legislation, 40 days. According to our analysis, this does not happen. Dealing with the Fiscal Package alone, for example, one of the most complex pieces of legislation, we have received notification ranging from two to 18 days, but the notification has never met even the 20-day minimum threshold.”
Speaking about the business climate, Jaco mentioned Albania’s ranking on the latest Doing Business Report and made a comparison with the other countries of the Balkan region.

The AmCham represents 222 foreign and domestic businesses with trade ties to the United States. The combined revenue of these businesses is $2.8 billion and represents 22 percent of the Albanian economy.

Source: AmCham, Monitor magazine

Photo credit: AmCham