In an address to a roundtable with banks and agribusiness representatives, Bank of Albania Governor Gent Sejko focused on improving the agricultural sector’s access to finance and pointed to the central bank’s recently approved Financing Program for micro, small, and medium-sized businesses (MSMEs) as a key channel to expand lending to agriculture.

The Governor highlighted that agriculture employs around one-third of Albania’s labour force and generates about 20% of national output, yet receives less than 2% of bank credit to businesses. Against a backdrop of 16% private-sector credit growth in 2024, an increase of around ALL 110 billion in the credit portfolio, he said the Bank of Albania has made available an ALL 25 billion fund to be implemented through commercial banks, which will allocate the funding through their own selection processes and at their own risk. The programme aims to reduce MSME borrowing costs, potentially to as low as 2% and in any case not exceeding 3.5%, supporting investment in physical assets, capital equipment, and technological platforms, while also encouraging tailored agricultural products that reflect production cycles and seasonal incomes.

The Governor also pointed to potential complementarities with government risk-sharing programmes and called for the roundtable to develop a concrete agenda of measures to address structural barriers to agricultural finance.

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