albania case studies

Signed projects

Board approval is the final stage in the project approval process. After Board approval, the EBRD and the client sign the deal and it becomes legally binding. Signed project lists reflect year-end data.

Signed projects  (0.1Mb)

Case studies

The Western Balkans Fund
Integrating the Western Balkans into the European economy
Municipal infrastructure

General manufacturing

Edipack: Paper recycling comes to Albania – 2008

Edipack is Albania’s biggest manufacturer of corrugated cardboard and packaging. Its market share, however, only amounts to about 10 per cent of the national consumption of cardboard and packaging products. Much of the rest is imported, as Edipack’s own raw materials have been until now.

The EBRD has taken a €2 million equity stake in Edipack to support the company's new recycled-paper production line and to establish waste paper recycling networks throughout Albania. With the introduction of the new paper production plant, the company will score a double first in Albania: opening the first paper manufacturing business and establishing the first paper recycling scheme.

The funds raised by the EBRD’s equity will allow the company to cut costs significantly, perhaps by as much as 50 per cent, as the new paper production facility will produce enough to supply all Edipack’s needs. While the fall in costs will enhance the company’s competitiveness and reduce its reliance on expensive imports, some benefit will also be felt by its competitors, who will also be able to access domestically produced materials for the first time. EBRD financing will also help Edipack establish its own structure for collecting waste paper, thus helping improve the country’s waste management situation. The company plans to install waste paper bins in areas of large use, such as shopping centres, warehouses of importers (especially of fruit and vegetables), ministries, municipalities, universities and printing houses. Current expectations are that the waste paper collected will suffice for the whole of Edipack’s projected paper production.

The owner of Edipack, Bardhyl Ballteza, is also president of the Albanian Recyclers’ Association and it is therefore hardly surprising that he should be pioneering the idea of paper recycling and addressing wider environmental awareness. This deal will introduce paper recycling to Albania by creating the first paper recycling and collection networks, as well as by using the waste collected in the creation of a new product.

The Western Balkans Fund – Donor Report 2007

The EBRD’s Annual Donor Meeting in 2005 reviewed the Bank’s strategy for mobilising assistance and coordinating action with donors in the Western Balkans. Citing the success of the Early Transition Countries Fund, donors asked the Bank to consider a similar initiative for the Western Balkans.

Follow-up discussions with donor representatives were held in 2006 to identify the priority needs in the region and to clarify the benefits that a new multi-donor fund could provide. It was agreed that the fund should promote coordinated and efficient assistance for infrastructure development, small and medium enterprise (SME) access to finance, institutional reform and cross-border cooperation.

Inaugurated in November 2006, the new multi-donor Western Balkans Fund aims to mobilise and coordinate additional grant resources for Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, FYR Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia (including Kosovo).

The Fund’s contributors are Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The participation of the Czech Republic, Poland, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia is particularly significant, as they are the first EBRD countries of operations to join the Bank’s donor community as contributors.

The Fund operates as an untied, multi -donor cooperation fund (untied meaning that the money can be used without any restriction as to the nationality of the firm or experts contracted in a particular project). It is managed by an Assembly of Contributors (the donors), supported by the Official Co-financing Unit of the EBRD, which acts as its Secretariat. Through its multilateral structure, the Fund will have greater flexibility for each project and will be able to respond more quickly and effectively to the demands of larger projects involving more than one country (traditionally problematic for a single donor). The Assembly will also provide a channel for identifying co-financing opportunities and a forum for policy discussions at project and strategic levels.

Integrating the Western Balkans into the European economy – Donor Report 2007

The Central European Initiative (CEI) fosters regional integration. Through its grant-aided technical cooperation projects, it has aimed to strengthen the legal, economic and financial environment of recipient countries and to promote harmonisation with the wider European economy. The CEI operates within the Official Co-financing Unit of the EBRD, where it manages the CEI Trust Fund, a tied fund supported by the Italian government with a total allocation amounting to €28 million.

Through its technical cooperation activities and “Know-How Exchange” programmes, the CEI promotes the dissemination of expertise and technical knowledge to bridge the skills gap between the most advanced and least advanced transition countries. It has assumed an ever-expanding role in regional development through the leverage achieved by its projects – in 2005-06, for instance, each euro invested by the CEI generated €177 of additional investment.

At the CEI’s Summit Economic Forum in Tirana (Albania) in November 2006, discussions centred on the theme of “Fostering reforms and innovation for sustainable growth”. The Forum hosted official business seminars alongside CEI heads of government and ministerial meetings. Just over 1,000 participants from 36 countries attended over 70 formal and informal meetings.

The formal sessions considered three main themes – fostering the business climate; exploiting local potential; and investing in innovation. Overall, the Forum concluded that, despite better macroeconomic conditions and stronger political backing for reforms in the Western Balkans, the enforceability of legislation and self-regulating codes remains an obstacle. Supporting reforms in innovation, enhancing intra-regional trade and assisting in the development of infrastructure will be priorities for the CEI in the coming year.

Municipal and environmental infrastructure

Municipal creditworthiness in Tirana – Donor Report 2007

Institutional reforms and substantial investments in municipal infrastructure are needed to respond to growth in urban population and traffic in the transition region. However, lack of access to credit has deterred many viable projects. The Creditworthiness Enhancement Programme for the city of Tirana has been specifically designed to strengthen the credit capacity of the Albanian capital.

Through this technical cooperation (TC) project, sponsored in 2006 by Italy’s Central European Initiative Trust Fund, Tirana will benefit from improved monitoring and control of its fiscal revenues and expenditure, as well as the re-organisation of its city treasury department into a single management unit. In addition, the assignment will help local civil servants implement anti-corruption measures and promote fair competition and transparency in the provision of municipal services. Additional TC finance was also provided by Italy through the Italian Cooperation Fund to develop a sustainable transport strategy for the city of Tirana.

The related Tirana municipal transport project – the EBRD’s first transaction in the Albanian municipal sector – involves the EBRD providing a sovereign loan of €14.6 million to help address significant deficiencies in urban transport and infrastructure services.

Modernising Tirana’s airport – Donor Report 2006

The number of flights in and out of Tirana’s Mother Teresa Airport has been steadily increasing in recent years, with many Albanians regularly returning home to visit friends and family. The airport, which has seen little investment since it was built in 1957, is struggling to cope with the increase in traffic.

In 2005 the EBRD extended €21 million to Tirana Airport Partners, a consortium led by Germany’s Hochtief Airport, to modernise the facility.

The EBRD’s financing package includes a €12 million loan for the construction of a new passenger terminal and cargo centre and a €9 million sovereign-guaranteed loan to build a new access road from the capital to the airport and improve the existing access road towards the south of the country. An additional €12.9 million loan was provided by Deutsche Investitions und Entwicklungsgesellschaft, Alpha Bank and the American Bank of Albania.

In 2003 the government of Albania launched an international tender for a 20-year concession to run Tirana Airport. The steady increase in visitors and the airport’s role as the country’s most important traffic hub has made this modernisation project imperative.