New Vlora international airport project unveiled
New Vlora international airport project unveiled - 2021-03-12
Prime Minister Edi Rama’s remarks during presentation of project on construction of Vlora international airport:
Thank you very much for your presence here at this crucial moment of changes we are bringing about in Vlora. I am very pleased that today we practically have the airport design on our hand. The today’s presentation here was a brief layout of the airport, but the project is indeed much more voluminous and is now ready to be implemented and for the construction company to kick off the construction works.
Before briefly commenting on this development, I would like to put emphasis on a fact that I believe it is important. Few years ago, the construction of this airport was just a dream, a long-standing dream, a pledge randomly reiterated during every electoral campaign, but nobody did truly believe that a day would come when Vlora would host its own international airport. The context was extremely difficult and what I have myself experienced was that nobody showed any interest in developing this project. No investors and private companies showed interest in the project and, indeed, the first attempt was registered following the Turkish government’s readiness to assist us, not for commercial purposes, but just to give us a hand so that we could build this airport.
We sought to reach an international agreement with a consortium, whose representatives visited Albania, designed a financial project and, following a very long negotiations process, we came to the conclusion that we were not close to signing an agreement of mutual interest and the consortium’s demands on what the state’s contribution were beyond our capacities. It all happened in a context when Vlora had yet to earn the today’s fame and when Albania had yet to become the country it clearly is today as a major tourist destination.
In the first eight months of the year, a total of 4.850 million foreigners have entered Albania’s territory, a figure many times higher than the tourist arrivals just three or four years ago. During the three summer months alone, 3.4 million tourists visited the country, or up 400, 000 tourists compared to the last summer, or up by 900, 000 compared to the peak season of 2017. We are talking about figures provided by the TIMS systems entry and exit tracking data and not about figures emerging from imaginary calculations. Such figures are very significant. In five years only, the number of foreign tourists and visitors to Albania has doubled. This has created a completely different context today, attracting growing interest of investors in tourism and those who are interested in developing hospitality infrastructure, something we see in the growing demands from leading foreign companies for investments in hotel and resort assets, including a series of impressive demands with which we hope to finalize some major investment accords in the tourism sector.
Not only Albania’s overall context has changed vis-à-vis this sector that is fundamental to economic development and growth and which will increasingly be one of the sectors that will generate a significant part of Albania’s revenues and create a significant number of jobs. Vlora is no longer what it used to be just few years ago, with local residents themselves finding it quite difficult to enter the city, let alone to attract substantial investment, even build an international airport.
What has happened to Vlora is already a well-known and acknowledged story by everyone. This is not the end, but just the beginning of a chapter of transformations, as more major investment will follow in the future. Meanwhile, it is indispensable that in addition to development of the mainstream transforming sectors, including infrastructure and tourism industry, we keep making efforts to intensify work and bring more development projects in the city.
https://kryeministria.al/en/newsroom/new-vlora-international-airport-project-unveiled/