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Albania
INDUSTRY
Albania's rigid Stalinists considered heavy industry the force
driving all developed economies. For years, the government fed
the lion's share of investment money and technology imports to
industrial behemoths, which had domestic monopolies and too often
lacked distinct objectives. Especially from the 1960s onward,
the government spent most investment funds on the production of
minerals for export and the manufacture of importsubstitution
products. The effort succeeded in expanding and diversifying Albania's
industrial sector, but without the discipline imposed by a free
market; the resulting creation was inefficient and structurally
distorted . In the early 1990s, industry accounted for about 40
percent of Albania's GDP and employed about 25 percent of the
nation's work force. The industrial sector's most important branches
were food products, energy and petroleum production, mining, light
industry, and engineering. All of Albania's industrial branches
suffered from obsolete equipment, inadequate infrastructure, and
low levels of worker skill and motivation. Shortages of energy,
spare parts, and raw materials stopped industrial production almost
entirely in the early 1990s.
Data as of April 1992
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