Prime Minister Edi Rama, from the 35th anniversary of the Socialist Party in Elbasan, stopped at the protests that have been held in the capital for several days.
Rama defended major tourism projects and foreign investment, arguing that they bring economic development, jobs and increased income to local communities.
He took as an example the transformation of Tivat in Montenegro after the investment in Porto Montenegro, while criticizing the opposition to similar projects in Albania, calling them an obstacle to the use of the country’s development opportunities.
According to him, Albania should not lose strategic investments that can affect the growth of the economy and tourism.
“Montenegro would not be what it is today if the project that paved the way for the transformation of Montenegro had been done here. If that project had been done here, that great Canadian entrepreneur, who closed the door here and fled to Montenegro, today we would not be who we are, but we would also have the first place in terms of salaries, pensions and other income, only thanks to that part of the tourism industry, luxury tourism.
Those who say that we don’t need luxury tourism because we don’t have money to go to those resorts, don’t know that in fact those resorts and hotels are engines of their economy, of the country that has them, of the people who live in that country. Those resorts and hotels are not disconnected from the reality of the country. Those who come there need the country, the services that the country has, they are the reason why farmers can produce more and sell better. Why fishermen can sell better, why shops, taxis, vans can have much more work and income. Those resorts and hotels are the reason why the state receives more taxes.
That Porto Montenegro, while the entrepreneur who initiated it wanted to build it in Durrës, placed it in a more backward area of Montenegro, with a very low income, the youth who fled because there was nothing to do there. Today Tivat hosts 5 million tourists a year because of that port, hotels and what it brings next. Today the services in Tivat are done by the people of that country. For all the young men and women of Montenegro there is a quality job, there is a job that there is no reason to leave and look for abroad.
What are we? Are we fools that others take the opportunities we let slip? All the transformation we have done, but it is a place that is mentioned by the whole world, that is mentioned as a tourist place, it is a place where 12 million tourists came last year, in such a strategic position. The fact that Albania is a tolerant country, a country where you don’t say “loot” to anyone, that’s why investors are interested.
The project that is being resisted in the most absurd way, is an investment of 4 billion euros, the largest in Europe for many, many years, and we do it like a cow, when the people say, that fills the bucket and then kicks it, showing the world a completely different image from what we are, do we do it like a cow by distributing to all those slush channels of social networks all kinds of wrong messages? Albania does not belong to the Albanians, because the house of the Albanian belongs to God and his friend!“, he said.
