TIRANA (Albania), October 21 (SeeNews) – Albania's government adopted the 2021 draft budget targeting economic growth of up to 5.5% and envisaging budget deficit equivalent to 6.5% of the planned gross domestic product (GDP), the finance ministry said.
The next year budget aims to support the economic recovery of the country after shocks from the devastating earthquake in 2019 and the crisis caused by the coronavirius pandemic, the ministry said in a press release on Tuesday.
The budget envisages revenues of 479 billion leks ($4.5 billion/3.8 billion euro), up 7.3% from the 2020 estimate, while expenditures are expected to increase by 1.4% to 588 billion leks.
The unemployment rate is projected to decrease to 12.2% in 2021 compared to the 2020 forecast of 13.9%.
The public debt-to-GDP ratio is expected to fall to 78.6% in 2021, from 80.9% estimated for the current year.
The budget also plans public investments in the amount of 7.3% of GDP.
The government forecasts an economic contraction of 6.1% in 2020 due to the coronavirus crisis.
In late 2019, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake, the worst to hit Albania in decades, left 51 people dead and around 3,000 injured.
In 2019, Albania's GDP grew by 2.2%, after a 4.06% increase in 2018, the national office of statistics has said.
(1 euro = 123.257 leks)