While the Prime Minister publicly declares that he will eliminate cash circulation in the Albanian economy within the next 5 years, in reality the exact opposite is happening. Official statistics show that cash is flooding the Albanian economy at the fastest pace ever recorded in history.
Data reported by the Bank of Albania shows that money outside banks increased by 60 billion lek or about 620 million euros in the space of one year, reaching a new historical record.
Today, a full 463.6 billion lek of cash circulates in the Albanian economy and is used in daily transactions, up from 403 billion lek in the same period a year ago.
But this is just the sea of physical money in the national currency. In parallel, tons of euros are also circulating in Albania outside banks, but their total quantity is not measured by the Bank of Albania.
However, if it is assumed that the lek/euro ratio circulating outside banks is the same as the lek/euro ratio in bank deposits, then it can be assumed that the figure of euros circulating outside banks is minimally equal to that of the lek. Today, Albanians have about 1437 billion lek in deposits in the banking system, of which 47 percent are held in lek and 53 percent in euro.
This would bring the total amount of physical cash circulating in the Albanian economy to around 930 billion lek, or nearly 9.5 billion euros. This is 30 percent more than the annual state budget.
Editorial
