Country brief
The Czech Republic is the most developed country situated in Central Europe and covers an area of 78,866 km2 and the populations is 10.6 million inhabitants. The official currency is koruna (app. 1 euro-25 koruna). It ranks as the 6th safest country and is one of the most non-religious countries in the world. The level of the unemployment is the lowest among EU countries. The Czech Republic is a pluralist multi-party parliamentarydemocracy. The Parliament is bicameral, with the Chamber of Deputies (200 members) and the Senate (81 members). Since 2013, the presidential election is direct. The actual president, Miloš Zeman was the first directly elected Czech.
Overview
The current level of political relations between Albania and the Czech Republic is very good. The Czech Republic has provided and continues to provide a significant contribution to the integration process of Albania into the European Union. The voice of Czech Republic, as part of the Visegrad Group (V4), has been vocal regarding the advancement of Albania in its EU path. Our two countries have expressed the political will to further extend their traditional relations by promoting wider use of unexplored space so far in the field of economic and trade cooperation, especially in the fields of energy, transport, railways and tourism, culture, education and science.
Bilateral relations
Diplomatic relations between Albania and Czechoslovakia were established on July 5, 1922, and they were interrupted during the World War II to be restored on December 10, 1945. They were upgraded on the ambassadorial level on August 2, 1954, to be degraded in 1961 at the level of Charge d’Affaires, and again were finally upgraded on the Ambassadorial one in 1992.
The two countries note with satisfaction that the past 3-4 years bilateral relations have gained a new momentum with the political exchanges at the highest level. The official visit of the Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama in Prague on October 2015 paved the way for the new broader opportunities of cooperation between the two countries. Many other visits in the ministerial level have followed it.
Good cooperation has also marked the relation at the parliamentary level. The exchanges have been frequent in both direction, at the level of Speakers of the Parliaments, as well as at the level of parliamentary Commissions, and have created the condition to further enhance the collaboration.
Parallel to these visits on the governmental and parliamental level the Embassy of the Republic of Albania in Prague has been working to extend the cooperation between the two countries among the local governments, municipalities and their institutions.
Bilateral Trade and investment
The positive political bilateral relations are reflected also in the economic cooperation between the countries, which has marked a positive tendency. Both sideshave expressed the mutual interest to further intensify the relation in this field.This is a great momentum to increase Czech companies’ presence in the Albanian market. Actually the Czech foreign direct investments amount to 52 million euro and during the last years was noted a triplication in volume of trade exchanges. In 2018 the trade exchange reached the amount of 100 million euro, from 75 million in 2017.A business forum was held in Tirana in February 2018.
Czech tourists have displayed a high interest in visiting our country every season of the year. The number of Czech and Albanian tourists visiting the respective countries has doubled in 2018 in comparison with 2016. Every summer direct flights 3 times per week Prague-Tirana-Prague are operating.
