Prime Minister Edi Rama is on a visit to the northwestern city of Lezha, where a two-day extended meeting is being held on main priorities for the government, parliament and the Socialist Party in 2024.
The meeting took place in three sessions; namely the first session with the parliamentary group leaders, Socialist Party’s political delegates and the cabinet members; an expanded cabinet session meeting also attended by the deputy ministers and the heads of central institutions, and a closer cabinet meeting.
Prime Minister Edi Rama appeared at a press conference after the second day of the meeting.
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I would like to thank many of you for taking the trouble to travel and come here, and for also waiting for a relatively long time and therefore we shall pay the respect you deserve.
We had the traditional marathon meeting of the governing majority.
This time, the meeting took place in three sessions; namely the first session with the parliamentary group leaders, Socialist Party’s political delegates and the cabinet members; an expanded cabinet session meeting also attended by the deputy ministers and the heads of central institutions, and a closer cabinet meeting.
As usual, this marathon gathering touches upon all aspects concerning the activity of the ruling majority, parliamentary and governmental political activity, then tackling every aspect, trickling down to every sector and even sub-sectors. I would like to note that the discussions on major road, ports and airports infrastructure have created a pretty clear picture of the progress of work on the Blue Corridor project.
Indeed, the Thumane-Kashar highway section, the most important segment of the Blue Corridor, is scheduled to open to traffic within this year after 70% of the construction work has been already completed. We have now a clearer picture about progress and the preparations to kick off the work on construction of Milot-Thumane highway, another crucial section of the project, as we all are pretty aware of the fact that how difficult the situation becomes and will become during the upcoming summer tourist season, with the road traffic congestion with the growing number of road users travelling from the north to Tirana or further south of Albania. We very much hope that the contracts on construction of the sections connecting Kashar and Rrogozhine and Rrogozhine-Lekaj ahead of the next tourist season. Completion of these sections will practically complete the entire axis of the Blue Corridor. Work is also underway on the first phase of the Milot-Murriqan segment. Work is in full swing on the project.
On the other hand, we have also addressed the need to finance the big by-pass road project in Elbasan, taking notice of the fact that work on construction of the Corridor 8 project is progressing fast also thanks to the favorable terrain and its very favorable geology to date and the work is running on schedule to complete with the first Tirana-Durres railway segment, most likely within the year and, in the meantime, we have discussed ways to secure funding for the 4 kilometer-long road to connect 10 more train stations from Kashar to the center of Tirana. The process is underway and I am confident that the contract will be signed by early autumn and the work will kick off on construction of Vorë-Han i Hotit railway. We have secured EU funds for construction of Durrës-Rrogozhine segment and we are compiling the application to further stretch the railway line to the resort lake town of Pogradec that would complete the Corridor 8 rail route. We have also discussed – and an intense communication is underway with the government of Kosovo – the progress of the strategic project on construction of the railway connecting Durres and Prishtina. The relevant bodies of both governments have agreed on principle to explore the possible rail route to stretch from Shkodra to Gjakova and Prishtina. This is one of the solutions proposed by Kosovo authorities.
Similarly, we have almost scheduled the process on opening the international tender on construction of the big Durres Port in Porto Romano area, about which a change in terms of its funding will be made, given that it is about a strategic project and of a strategic urgency as we have involved NATO for the port’s military aspect and we are currently at a very advanced information exchange stage. The change consists of the fact that we will move to domestic funding so that the project is not hampered and delayed. These are more or less the major infrastructure projects everyone is interested in.
Delivering on the National Transport Agency is another major project on infrastructure exploitation, given our ambition to make Albania a regional champion for tourism.
I don’t know whether you have come across the latest finding by Booking.com, one of the largest global booking platforms, which most recently said that the city of Vlora has emerged as one of the top ten destinations booked in relative terms for the upcoming tourist destination.
This doesn’t mean that the number of tourists visiting Vlora would be higher than the number of visitors to China, so to say, but I am citing the Booking.com findings to say that Vlora ranks among the top ten most booked destinations among the most magical tourist destinations on the planet.
In relative terms, Albania is the country that has experienced the largest increase of international tourism in Europe during 2023.
The National Transport Agency will help to take the national transport network to a whole new level and the Agency will also be tasked with another very important mission of transporting teachers and pupils. The work on this project has been launched for some time now and we are about to finalize it. I am confident you will learn about the project in the next two or three months or even earlier, when a stock car production agency will be founded for the state’s needs, as well as for export.
It is a wonderful project that will allow us to manufacture vehicle to meet the needs of the Ministry of Health, the ministry of Interior, the National Transport Agency needs, as well as export-bounded vehicles, building on the genius and undeniable expertise of an Albanian girl, whom you all know and with whom we are building this process with her modest enterprise that, nevertheless, wins international tenders to send ambulances to various countries from Ukraine to Serbia.