Overview: As the poorest country in Europe, Albania's development lags behind even the least favored areas of the Yugoslav economy. The Stalinist-type economy operates on the principles of central planning and state ownership of the means of production. In recent years Albania has implemented limited economic reforms to stimulate its lagging economy, although they do not go nearly so far as current reforms in the USSR and Eastern Europe. Attempts at self-reliance and a policy of not borrowing from international lenders--sometimes overlooked in recent years--have greatly hindered the development of a broad economic infrastructure. Albania, however, possesses considerable mineral resources and is largely self-sufficient in food. Numerical estimates of Albanian economic activity are subject to an especially wide margin of error because the government is isolated and closemouthed.

GNP: $3.8 billion, per capita $1,200; real growth rate NA% (1989 est.)

Inflation rate (consumer prices): NA%

Unemployment rate: NA%

Budget: revenues $2.3 billion; expenditures $2.3 billion, including capital expenditures of NA (1989)

Exports: $378 million (f.o.b., 1987 est.); commodities--asphalt, bitumen, petroleum products, metals and metallic ores, electricity, oil, vegetables, fruits, tobacco; partners--Italy, Yugoslavia, FRG, Greece, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary

Imports: $255 million (f.o.b., 1987 est.); commodities--machinery, machine tools, iron and steel products, textiles, chemicals, pharmaceuticals; partners--Italy, Yugoslavia, FRG, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, GDR

External debt: $NA

Industrial production: growth rate NA

Electricity: 1,630,000 kW capacity; 4,725 million kWh produced, 1,440 kWh per capita (1989)

Industries: food processing, textiles and clothing, lumber, oil, cement, chemicals, basic metals, hydropower

Agriculture: arable land per capita among lowest in Europe; one-half of work force engaged in farming; produces wide range of temperate-zone crops and livestock; claims self-sufficiency in grain output

Aid: none

Currency: lek (plural--leke); 1 lek (L) = 100 qintars

Exchange rates: leke (L) per US$1--8.00 (noncommercial fixed rate since 1986), 4.14 (commercial fixed rate since 1987)

Fiscal year: calendar year

NOTE: The information regarding Albania on this page is re-published from the 1990 World Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Albania Economy 1990 information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Albania Economy 1990 should be addressed to the CIA.