S&T Country Report - Albania - WBC-INCO Net

Task Force to ease market entry barriers, to make the regulatory environment, more
transparent, predictable, and simple; and to ensure a level playing field for local and
foreign business. In order to support the development of SMEs, the encouragement
of donor support for micro credits will continue; the SME Medium-Term Strategic
Programme for 2007 - 2009 was finalized and following actions to be carried out (The
Government of Albania, 2007).
As stated by Lauresha Grezda from the USAID/EDEM, the National Business
Registration Center has started its activity on Monday September 3, 2007 and it's the
first center of this kind in Albania. The one stop shop will offer even services, which
until now had been performed by the General Tax Directorate, enabling businesses
to register within one day paying a fee of only Lek 100. This Center is financed by
Millennium Challenge Corporation Threshold Programme. 12 other one stop shops
will be opened in other districts of Albania. After submitting the forms, the citizens
can, within 24 hours, take the respective documents certifying that their business has
been registered with the NBRC together with the Individual Taxpayer Identification
Number (ITIN).
According to Uvalić, the overall state of R&D infrastructure in Albania is not very
satisfactory. At the time of writing this report, there were still no research centres at
the local or regional level, nor new technologies or innovation parks. The technology
and technical research equipment has improved in recent years, but is still
insufficient. The communication and information infrastructure, the network access
for higher education and research institutes, and the library information systems are
highly inadequate and there is almost no access to electronic journals and Science
Citation Index databases (Uvalić, 2006).
Government and its agencies have a fundamental lead role to play in providing an
environment favourable to business operations and conducive to private investment.
This is especially true for small business. In order to flourish and grow they need an
environment that facilitates and enables business start-up, does not hamper them
with excessive and costly regulations and facilitates access to finance and business
services.
In Albania, the leading agency has been the Albanian Economic Development
Agency and various ministry departments, which mostly offer support through donor
projects on training activities, participation on conferences, fairs and other
promotional activities such as publications, brochures, etc. There are more than 60
business support centres. Most information and consulting services are offered
through the non-governmental network of Regional Development Agencies (RDA).
The innovation infrastructure in Albania is represented by:
- Regional Development Agencies (RDAs): There are 10 Regional Development
Agencies operating since 1995 in 10 regions of Albania, with the status of NGOs.
RDAs mission is “to serve as an intermediary bridge to business, donors, local
authority and civil society, improve business climate and enhance the regional
economic development through the implementation of common efforts for the
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