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Albania
Foreign Trade Organization
Until 1990 Albania's government exercised a monopoly on foreign
trade and controlled it through a highly centralized management
mechanism. Following Stalin's model, all external transactions
were conducted through foreign-trade enterprises under the guidance
of the Ministry of Foreign Trade. In the 1980s, six government
foreign-trade enterprises dealt in commodities; five covered services;
and two more were concerned with foreign copyrights and licensing
agreements. Domestic firms paid for imported goods at fixed wholesale
prices that bore little relationship to world prices; they also
received fixed wholesale prices for exports. The state bank retained
all foreign-currency earnings and covered any losses the foreigntrade
enterprises sustained. As a matter of policy, the regime stressed
exports and maintained strictly balanced trade on an ongoing,
country-by-country basis until 1990. Foreign companies could win
or lose contracts depending on Albania's current trade balance
with their home country. Albanian traders generally purchased
only vital goods and usually paid in cash. Western trade restrictions
on East European countries applied to Albania for years because
the country never formally withdrew its membership from Comecon,
even though it did not participate in Comecon activities.
The downfall of the centrally planned economic system brought
sweeping changes to Albania's method of conducting foreign trade.
The government abandoned its strict monopoly on foreign commerce
in August 1990, when it began allowing state-owned enterprises
to conduct foreign trade, retain foreign-exchange earnings, and
maintain foreign-currency accounts. Private Albanian companies
won the right to carry on foreign trade a year later when the
government announced that domestic firms would be permitted to
export everything except certain food items. Strapped by a balance
of payments deficit and mounting external debt, the authorities
continued, however, to limit imports. Tiranë also imposed customs
duties ranging from 10 percent for food to 30 percent for new
machinery and equipment. The Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations,
which replaced the Ministry of Foreign Trade, attempted to stimulate
exports by establishing a department for trade consultation that
provided data on world prices, product availability, types of
trade, and other information to state and private enterprises
as well as to foreign firms interested in doing business with
Albania. The authorities planned to streamline the tariff system
and abolish state trading enterprises.
In the lawlessness that beset Albania after the communist order
began to break down, trade laws were generally ignored by the
country's private businessmen and black marketeers, especially
ethnic Albanians from Serbia's province of Kosovo (see Glossary)
and émigrés in Europe and the United States. Graft pervaded the
customs service. Italian soldiers said customs officers who inspected
containers of aid from Italy left the Durrës dockyards with food
jammed into their clothing. High-ranking government officials
resigned after disclosures that they had smuggled to Greece 1,000
tons of Italian cooking oil sent as food aid. Peasants also smuggled
livestock to markets across the Greek order, and border officials
in Yugoslavia and Greece complained of Albanians coming across
and burglarizing homes.
Data as of April 1992
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