Xinhua News Agency December 16, 2014 

News analysis: Albania PM hails "new epoch of cooperation" with China

 

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(Globalpost/GlobalPost)

By Benet Koleka, Liu Lihang

TIRANA, Dec. 16 (Xinhua) -- Albania has signed a memorandum with China to build the road of the Arber (old name of Albanians) on Monday's night, ushering in a new epoch of cooperation between the two countries that are re-connecting their old ties.

The construction of the road of the Arber, signed between Albania's Finance and Transport Ministers and China's Exim Bank, would become "the first project that will open the curtain on a new epoch of cooperation between Albania and China," Albanian prime minister Edi Rama wrote on Facebook on Tuesday.

The projects to be financed by Chinese Exim Bank are the first over more than three decades and signal both China's involvement in its former friend and Albania's need for foreign financing while its debt-ridden economy struggles to grow.

Speaking from Belgrade where he is attending the third meeting of leaders of China and Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs), Rama posted pictures of his ministers after signing memorandum of understanding "to open a site of projects in Albania with Chinese financing".

The deals with China received a thumbs-up in the Albanian press, with commentator Arben Rrozhani calling China "The Lion Albania needs".

He regretted that Albanian governments, focused on joining the European Union, had neglected without an "historical and economic logic the invaluable help the country would have received along these two decades from the unstoppable Chinese investments."

"Albania shut the door to the investment powerhouse as tens of other countries opened theirs to the third biggest investor in the world. Now our neighbours are rushing to draw Chinese investments," added Rrozhani, the editor of the Shekulli daily, owned by a lawmaker of Rama's Socialists.

Valbona Zeneli, an Albanian scholar at the George C. Marshall European Centre of Security Studies, said China was building assets and buying far-sighted shares in a region strongly connected to Western Europe.

Alqi Kociko, an Albanian journalist who has visited China, said it was time Albania considered the Chinese chances of investments seriously, to make sure it did not lose it like aid from Western Germany in the late 1980s.

Rama, the prime minister, received overwhelming approval in his Facebook page from commentators. "Well done, China is very powerful," commentator Ana Maria wrote on his page. Enditem.