Governor Sejko meets representatives from Moody’s

On 3 September 2024, the Governor of the Bank of Albania, Mr Gent Sejko, met with a delegation from Moody's Analytics, headed by Mr Domenico Piscitelli, Director of Research and Policies for Europe at Moody's.

The meeting focused on presenting and analysing the recent economic and financial situation in Albania, and discussing the possibility of cooperation between these two institutions.

During the meeting, Governor Sejko said that the Albanian economy has recorded a positive performance, despite the various and numerous challenges it has faced in recent years. He underlined the fact that Albania has recorded a solid economic growth, low inflation, which has been kept under control, and an improvement in maintaining domestic and foreign equilibriums. Next, the Governor stressed out that the update of our forecasts suggests this positive economic development momentum will continue in the next year as well. In particular, the Albanian economy is expected to continue growing in the medium-term, at stable and close to potential rates, while inflation is expected to stay close to current rates for the rest of 2024, and return to the target in the first half of 2025. In this regard, Mr Sejko stated that the prudential normalisation of monetary policy stance succeeded in putting inflation under control, without jeopardising the positive development of Albania and its financial stability.

Next, the Governor presented an overview of the banking sector's stability. The latter has recorded stable liquidity and profitability indicators. The Governor highlighted that the banking sector has continued to provide the necessary funds for increasing consumption and investments. He said that the Bank of Albania is committed in safeguarding the stability of the banking system and its continuing development through guaranteeing the required regulation and supervision. On the other hand, the Bank of Albania provides its full support to the European integration process, in addition to meticulously adopting all the reforms as required by this process.

The representatives of Moody's commended positive progress of Albania in the past years, in terms of both economic growth, and strengthening the parameters of economic and financial stability. They underlined that this progress is manifested in stronger institutional capacities that have been able to lead and draft effective macroeconomic policies, as well as the prudential supervision and regulation of its financial system. Moody's representatives also emphasised that the continuing integration of Albania in the EU and in the Single Euro Payments Area will bring extraordinary benefits, as well as several challenges as regards better policy-making, and the drafting and applying of the supervisory and regulatory framework.

The international agency of credit evaluation, "Moody's"- as released on 19 April 2024 - has changed Albania's outlook, from "stable" to "positive", in the last published revision.

Representative from Moody's declared that they welcome the possibility to assist the Bank of Albania in fulfilling its wide range of tasks regarding monetary policy, financial stability, payment system and financial supervision. Further on, they also addressed specific fields of cooperation in the future, among which were the exchange of information to the effect of further increasing the quality of decision-making, the strengthening of the financial industry's resilience in order to withstand potential shocks of climate change, and enhancing the country's ability to face various cyber-attacks.

Concluding, Mr Domenico Piscitelli thanked the Bank of Albania's representatives for their hospitality and close cooperation displayed during the visit, putting the stress on the Moody's presence as a key partner of central banks in the Euro system, EU and beyond EU borders.