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Albania
Trade Partners
In the mid-1980s, Albania claimed to be carrying on trade with
more than fifty countries although the value of the goods exchanged
with most of them was small. Trade with IMF member countries,
however, was in some cases substantial . Neighboring Yugoslavia
accounted for about 18 percent of Albania's trade volume; the
remainder was divided almost evenly between the communist and
capitalist countries. Tiranė's main trading partners in Eastern
Europe were Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia. In
the late 1970s, Albanian's break with China forced its commercial
representatives to redouble their efforts to find new trading
partners in the free-market world. The value of Albania's trade
with the West stood at about US$200 million by the late 1980s.
In 1988 its main Western trading partners were Italy (US$65 million
in trade turnover), West Germany (US$52 million), Greece (US$16.4
million), and France (US$14 million).
Albanian-Yugoslav trade, torpid throughout a decades-long chill
in the two countries' relations, revived after Albania's break
with China. The chamber of commerce of each nation opened offices
in the other's capital city, and in 1986 a new rail line to Yugoslavia
linked Albania with the European rail network for the first time.
Albanian imports from Yugoslavia included reinforcing steel, railroad
track, steel piping, cables, bricks, pharmaceuticals, electronics,
textiles, food, and capital goods. Yugoslavia imported electric
power, tobacco, chrome, bitumen, gasoline, natural gas, cognac,
and food from Albania. The fallout from the political crisis in
Yugoslavia's Kosovo province, populated mainly by ethnic Albanians,
had surprisingly little effect on Albanian-Yugoslav trade until
the early 1990s, when war erupted between Croatia and Serbia.
In 1991 the Albanian government and leaders of the ethnic Albanian
community in Kosovo worked toward establishing a joint, Tiranė-based
commission to promote stronger economic ties.
After its break with the Soviet Union in 1960, Albania played
no part in the activities of Comecon. Trade with the Eastern bloc
nations--with the glaring exception of the Soviet Union, with
which Albania maintained no trade relations--increased after Albania
broke with China. Generally, Albania supplied its communist-world
trading partners with metal ores and agricultural products; it
imported machinery, transportation equipment, and some consumer
goods. The Albanians obtained rolled steel and coking coal from
Poland, pumps from Hungary, trucks and tires from Czechoslovakia,
sheet steel from Bulgaria, and textile machinery and fertilizers
from East Germany. The Albanians also signed a contract with Hungary
to build a pharmaceuticals plant in Tiranė. After a five-year
hiatus, China and Albania resumed trade activities in 1983; the
new relationship, however, lacked the intimacy of the twelve-year
period of close cooperation in the 1960s and early 1970s. Albania
carried on a modicum of trade with the Democratic People's Republic
of Korea (North Korea) and Cuba.
In the mid-1980s, the growing interest of small import firms
in the Albanian market accounted for a sharp increase in trade
with Italy and West Germany. Italy was Albania's largest Western
trading partner in the late 1980s. Italian exports to Albania
accounted for about 20 percent of the West's exports to Albania
in 1985, and Italy purchased 16.5 percent of Albania's exports
to Western countries. Italy sold Albania metalworking and foodprocessing
machinery, chemicals, iron and steel, metal products, vehicles,
and plastics. The Italians imported petroleum products, chrome,
copper, nickel and iron ore, and farm products from Albania. In
the mid-1980s, West Germany accounted for about 15.5 percent of
Western exports to Albania and 15 percent of Western purchases
from Albania. Chromium ore and concentrates represented about
50 percent of Albania's exports to West Germany in 1985. The Albanians
bought machinery, transportation equipment, and manufactured goods
from West Germany. The collapse of Albania's Stalinist economic
system opened the door for greater trade with Western Europe.
In 1991 Tiranė was negotiating its first economic agreement with
the European Community, under which each party would grant the
other most-favored-nation
status (see Glossary).
Albania was subject to all United States controls on exports
to East European nations for decades. The country did not have
most-favored-nation treatment and was not eligible for credits
or loan guarantees from the Export-Import Bank of the United States
(Eximbank). Nevertheless, the volume of United States trade with
Albania grew from about US$1 million in 1973 to over US$20 million
in 1982; it fell, however, to US$7.7 million in 1986. In 1991
the United States exported coal, wheat, butterfat, powdered milk,
and other products to Albania with a total value of about US$18
million; to the United States, Albania exported primarily spices
and fruit preserves worth about US$3.2 million. In 1991 Albania
was attempting to conclude an economic agreement with the United
States by which each nation would extend to the other most-favored-nation
status.
Albania's trade with developing countries, which was driven mostly
by a need to find and nurture political alliances, amounted to
only about US$10 million out of a total trade turnover of US$513
million reported in 1982. Trade with developing countries was
hindered because Albania sold its raw materials to and bought
vital manufactured goods from wealthier, industrialized nations.
Algeria, Costa Rica, Egypt, Iran, Libya, Mexico, and Turkey had
had trade agreements with communist Albania.
Data as of April 1992
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