According to a survey of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), unfair competition and the lack of access to electricity are the two main obstacles for the development of Albanian firms.
The survey, which aimed to map the difficulties encountered by entrepreneurs in the Western Balkans, conducted interviews with 1,800 firms from Albania, Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia, and Bosnia Herzegovina.
Unfair competition from the informal sector is ranked highest as main obstacle for Albanian businesses, scoring 16.8%. Irregular access to electricity ranked second, with 13.6% of the interviewees indicating this as the main obstacle.
Other commonly experienced difficulties are the access to finances (12.9%) and the maladministration of taxes (11.6%). The firms stated that banks often refused them credit, or asked for high interest rates. Moreover, especially small- and medium-sized businesses encounter problems with filing their taxes, as they often don’t have dedicated staff to deal with tax administration.
Within the entire region, the main obstacles for entrepreneurship are unfair competition, political instability, bad access to finance, and high tax and corruption levels.
