May 17 (SeeNews) - Albania should continue working towards boosting tax collection and establishing a framework to manage and coordinate public investment projects effectively, the Council of the European Union said.
"[Albania] should continue measures to increase tax revenue as share in GDP in a growth-friendly way while taking into account the results of a broad public consultation on tax policies. Complete procedures to fully establish the National Single Project Pipeline (NSPP) and advance the necessary legal amendments to fully integrate PPPs [public-private partnerships] into the NSPP," the Council said in a report on the economic and financial dialogue with the Western Balkans published on Tuesday.
It should increase spending on education, social protection and health as a percent of total expenditure, the Council added.
Albania should focus on achieving a non-negative balance in 2023, with government arrears limited in each quarter of 2023 to 2.5% of total expenditure and below 2.4% of total expenditure at end-2023. The country should execute a medium-term budget plan to reduce the ratio of public debt and increase the primary surplus.
The country should develop business support services in support of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) greening transition, further accelerate SME digitalisation and e-commerce, offer robust insolvency prevention policies to SMEs at risk, and ensure a coherent and predictable application of the property law, the Council also said.
It should enhance its energy resilience and diversification towards green energy transition and ensure that the Renewable Energy Operator is operational by end 2023.