President Ilir Meta has warned the government that public debt growth has the potential to throw Albania into a “serious crisis”.
Meta called on the Ministry of Finance to publish urgently the real level of public debt, which would include hidden financial commitments stemming from public-private partnership and similar.
In a press statement on Friday, Meta warned that the country will be in a dire financial situation if the government remains opaque and continues to exclude hidden costs from the numbers it reports on the public debt.
Instead of the reported public debt of 80 percent of the GDP, the president argued that the actual debt amounts to 84 percent when PPPs and lost arbitration cases are accounted for.
He called on the parliament, domestic and international financial institutions to help calculate the real public debt of Albania.
Meta said that the country is ranked second in the region, just behind Montenegro, for its high public debt to GDP ratio.
