In 1993 the supply of foreign exchange amounted to $ million. Ten years later this would increase by almost 2 1/2 times to $ billion. In 2013, the supply of foreign exchange almost tripled to $ 5.8 billion. This prompted the Central Bank to intervene with increasing volumes of foreign exchange to quell excess demand pressures.
Notwithstanding this improvement, the return on equity levels in 2005 were – with the exception of Albania – below the average recorded in the Central European and Baltic countries. Let me now turn to the monetary integration process of candidate and potential candidate countries 2 before and after their accession to the European Union.