Despite the slight correction during the year, current account deficit remains high and one of the weaknesses of the Albanian economy. The Bank of Albania considers that the prioritized handling of the current account deficit requires the formulation of policies supportive to the long-term growth of savings in Albania, as well as measures to encourage production in those branches or industries that result competitive in the international markets. Trade balance narrowing was affected by the concurrent annual decline of exports and imports by 18 and 9 percent, respectively. The difficult situation in our neighbouring countries has been also reflected in the decline of remittances, which contracted 6.5 percent in annual terms, while their share to GDP was 9 percent. Capital and financial account surplus reduced substantially over the course of 2009, dropping by 35.6 percent compared to 2008. This performance owes to a large extent to the low increase in foreign direct investment and the reduction of private foreign borrowing. Unlike the previous two years when capital and financial account covered over 100 percent of the current deficit, in 2009 it financed only 77 percent. Total foreign inflows, albeit downward, were almost sufficient to cover this deficit in 2009. The country’s foreign reserve remained at similar levels as in 2008, sufficient to cover 4.2 months of imports of goods and services. 4  BIS Review 78/2010  The contraction of foreign inflows exerted depreciating pressure on the exchange rate, particularly in the first half of 2009.
Unfortunately in reality what may seem to be a perfect match does not exist in Asia. A large part of the savings in Asia have been channelled through the banking and other financial market channels to the advanced markets and then part of these savings are channelled back to Asia. This pattern of flows has created several problems. Most importantly, with the implementation of Basel III, banks no longer find it attractive to lend to long term infrastructural projects because of the higher capital charge required to hold these assets on their books. More specifically, many European banks, which were very active in infrastructural financing in Asia in the past decade, have reduced their exposures in this area and will continue to do so in the future. So many infrastructural projects in Asia are now finding it increasingly difficult to secure the necessary finance. At the same time, many bankers and fund managers have said that there is still ample supply of funds looking for investment opportunities, but lending or investments in Asia’s infrastructure has been greatly hampered by the shortage of “bankable” projects. So on the one hand Asia has a huge funding need for infrastructural projects but on the other bankers and investors sitting on huge amounts of savings complain that they cannot find sufficient “bankable” projects. Clearly there is a big gap here. There are many reasons why such gap exists, involving factors relating to legal, governance and political risks for investing in Asia’s infrastructure.