Occasional Paper No 2014, Banco de España, and Box 3.4 of the Annual Report 2019 of the Banco de España for a discussion of the role of a fiscal policy coordinated at European and international level in the current context. 18  receive from the fund over this period is some € billion (around 12.5% of Spain’s estimated GDP in 2020), of which almost half would take the form of direct grants, with the rest in the form of loans. These funds, appropriately channelled towards projects with the ability to transform the Spanish economy and raise its potential growth, will be fundamental to strengthen the economic recovery and reduce the possible permanent consequences of the crisis. In fact, according to Banco de España estimates,8 this fund has the potential to become an important element of support for the recovery and, especially, a unique lever to raise the Spanish economy’s low potential growth rates. Nonetheless, we would be making a huge mistake if we were to think that mere receipt of the funds will be sufficient for our country to extract the greatest possible benefit from them. First, we need to establish the capacity to design and develop a sufficient volume of new projects, so that the funds are not used to finance spending that would have taken place in any case, or to finance projects with limited added value. Second, prompt execution of these projects would help make the Spanish economic recovery more robust, once the constraints imposed by the pandemic are lifted.
Gent Sejko: Address on remittances of the Albania diaspora Welcome address by Mr Gent Sejko, Governor of the Bank of Albania, at the high-level meeting on the remittances of the Albanian diaspora, Tirana, 14 December 2018. * * * Your Excellency, Minister Majko, Dear guests and colleagues, It is a special pleasure to open today’s meeting, which takes place after a year of intensive coordinated effort between our institutions toward the achievement of common objectives in relation to remittances of the diaspora, and other important issues. Today, a year after the Memorandum of Understanding was signed, I have the pleasure of noting that the materialization of these efforts has been reflected in the undertaking of a number of commitments and projects in pursuit of the objectives set out below. The importance of remittances to the Albanian economy, to family welfare and to development in general is highlighted in many communications of the Bank of Albania. In this context, during 2018, the Bank of Albania engaged its resources in developments aimed at creating the necessary prerequisites for an efficient channelling of such incomes into the Albanian economy. International initiatives in the field of remittances underline the importance of reducing the costs and increasing the efficiency of remittance services, thus implying the need to intervene in the retail payment market, in both remittance-sending and remittance-receiving countries.