[ALBSA-Info] Pact Wipes Durres Port Off the Map

[Asti Pilika]

Press Review: "Gazeta Shqiptare"

Pact Wipes Durres Port Off the Map 

A recent meeting held in Skopje decided to call off
the financing for an extension to Durres port and
instead give priority to that at Salonika, independent
daily ‘Gazeta Shqiptare’ reported Stability Pact
coordinator, Gramoz Pashko, who represented Albania at
the meeting, as announcing.

According to the paper, this decision is fatal for
Albania because the rejection of the Durres port
project will suffocate the whole of the great project
to encompass Albania into Corridor VIII.

Excerpts follow:

The dream of the Albanians about the construction of
Corridor VIII has already been shattered. 

In Wednesday’s government meeting, the declaration of
the Stability Pact coordinator, Gramoz Pashko, that
the Skopje meeting had decided to call off financing
the extension of the largest Albanian port, came as a
bolt from the blue.

This economic round-table decided instead to give
priority to the port of Salonika, sources in the
Premier’s office said, quoting Pashko. 

Gramoz Pashko, the official appointed to negotiate
with the international community over Albania’s
priority projects failed to convince the round-table’s
organizers to support the financing of the extension
of Durres port. What is fatal to the Albanians, it is
the fact that Salonika Port will be given a greater
priority. So, the $130m project proposed by the
Albanian government has been in vain.

"To us, this project was the first among our
priorities. A total of $96m was required for the
constructing of container terminals and the remainder
for the modernising of the port’s surroundings,"
sources from the Ministry of Public Works said.

The decision of the Skopje meeting is fatal because
the rejection of the Albanian project rejects the
whole of the macro-project to encompass Albania into
Corridor VIII on which the future development of the
country is planned to depend.

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