TIRANA (Albania), December 9 (SeeNews) – The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said it is considering providing a sovereign loan of up to 60 million euro ($66.3 million) to finance a programme on tourism-enabling infrastructure sub-projects in Albania’s cities of Berat, Korca, Fier and Shkoder.
The loan is expected to finance also general municipal and transport infrastructure sub-projects across the country, the EBRD said in a press release on Friday.
“The programme aims at tackling the issues hindering the tourism sector in Albania through investments both in infrastructure and tourist related businesses and helping Albania achieve the objective of the national strategy for development and investment to improve the country’s competitiveness and economic growth through high quality and sustainable tourism,” the lender added.
The loan will co-finance the programme alongside an EU investment grant of 40 million euro that will be made available through the instruments for pre-accession assistance (IPA).
In this context, the EBRD said, it is seeking to engage a consultant to support the establishment of a sector skills council (SSC) to guide the education policy in the tourism and hospitality sector within the IPA action programme.
“The expected outcome of the assignment is to establish a private-sector led policy engagement platform for tourism and hospitality – SSC in Albania,” the EBRD said.
The consultant's assignment is expected to start in first quarter of the next year and has an estimated overall duration of 24 months. The estimated cost of the assignment is up to 150,000 euro, exclusive of VAT. The deadline for submitting bids is January 10, 2020.
($ = 0.90378 euro)