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Albania
The Precommunist Albanian Economy
The Albanians faced daunting developmental challenges when they
declared independence in 1912 after some 500 years as part of
the Ottoman Empire. Their medieval, patriarchal social structure
necessarily stunted the growth of anything beyond the most rudimentary
economic relationships. Subsistence and feudal agriculture so
dominated Albania's economy in the state's early years that even
trained carpenters, joiners, and blacksmiths were in short supply.
Each family generally produced its own bread and meat as well
as flax, wool, and leather. Many peasants used wooden plows and
knew little about manures, artificial fertilizers, or crop rotation;
most had no incentive to produce cash crops because they had no
way to transport their output to a reliable market. A complete
absence of good roads made interregional commerce almost impossible.
The trip from Tiranë to Vlorë, for example, involved a sea journey;
and although Shkodër's tradesmen exported skins by boat to Italy,
their compatriots in Gjirokastër had to cross the Strait of Otranto
to buy them from the Italians . There were also no roads across
the Greek or Yugoslav borders capable of handling commercial traffic.
Albania's leaders lacked accurate data on the country's agricultural
output, as well as on the extent and characteristics of its farmland,
livestock herds, and oil and mineral deposits. President Ahmed
Zogu (later king Zog) sought Italian protection for Albania 1925,
entering into economic agreements that Italy used to exploit Albania's
oil, chromite, copper, and iron-ore reserves. Albania remained
backward, however. In the late 1920s, agriculture contributed
over 90 percent of the national income although only 8 percent
of the country's land area was under cultivation and the entire
farm sector could boast only thirtytwo tractors . Even in 1938,
Albania's industrial output amounted to less than 4 percent of
national income, and annual per capita industrial production totaled
about US$8. However, Italy did carry out extensive geological
exploration, gauging for the first time the extent of Albania's
mineral wealth. The Italians also improved Albania's infrastructure,
modernizing Tiranë and constructing 1,500 kilometers of roads
and several hundred bridges as well as Durrës harbor. World War
II dealt Albania's economy severe setbacks except in the mining
sector, where the mineral-hungry Italian and German occupying
forces actually added to productive capacity. Durrës harbor and
many of the country's roads and bridges, however, sustained damage
during the war.
Data as of April 1992
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