Power Outages in Top 3 of Obstacles for Albanian Business

The top three business environment obstacles identified by Albanian firms are electricity issues, competitors’ practices in the informal sector and corruption, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said, as reported by SEE News.

Competitors’ practices in the informal sector were the main obstacle for small and medium enterprises, corruption was more problematic for large firms, while tax administration and access to land were among the chief constraints for young firms, the EBRD said in a summary of the fifth EBRD and World Bank Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS) from across the transition region.

Although the number of power outages in a typical month in Albania decreased from 32.8 in 2007 to 7.8 in the latest BEEPS round, partly owing to increased precipitation, it still exceeded the Southeast Europe (SEE) average of 5.4, the EBRD said.