Zenit Spedition
Destination Albania

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Albania - brief overview about the Zenit destination Albania.

Geopraphy

Albania has a total area of 28,748 square kilometers. Its coastline is 362 kilometers long and extends along the Adriatic and Ionian Seas. The lowlands of the west face the Adriatic Sea. The 70% of the country that is mountainous is rugged and often inaccessible from the outside. The highest mountain is Korab situated in the district of Dibra, reaching up to 2,753 metres (9,030 ft). The country has a continental climate at its high altitude regions with cold winters and hot summers. Besides the capital city of Tirana, which has 800,000 inhabitants, the principal cities are Durrës, Korçë, Elbasan, Shkodër, Gjirokastër, Vlorë and Kukës. In Albanian grammar, a word can have indefinite and definite forms, and this also applies to city names: both Tiranë and Tirana, Shkodër and Shkodra are used.

Demographics

The Albanian population is considered a very young population, with an average age of 28.9 years. After 1990 the Albanian population has faced new phenomena like migration, which greatly affected the distribution by districts and prefectures. Districts in the North have seen a decreasing population, while Tirana and Durrës districts have increased their population.[citation needed] Albania's population was 3,152,600 on 1 January 2007 and 3,170,048 on 1 January 2008. Alternative sources estimate the population in July 2009 at 3,639,453 with an annual growth rate of 0.546%. Albania is a largely ethnically homogeneous country with only small minorities. The vast majority of the population is ethnically Albanian (98.6%). Minorities include Greeks 1.17% and others 0.23% (Vlachs, Macedonians, Roma, Bulgarians, Balkan Egyptians, Serbs and other former Yugoslavians). The size of the Greek minority is contentious, with the Albanian government claiming it is only 60,000, while the Greek government is claiming 300,000. CIA Factbook gives the Greek minority 3% of the total population. The dominant language is Albanian, with two main dialects, Gheg and Tosk. Many Albanians are also fluent in English, Italian, Greek, Turkish or German

Economy

Afghanistan is a member of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). It is an impoverished country, one of the world's poorest and least developed. Two-thirds of the population lives on fewer than 2 US dollars a day. Its economy has suffered greatly from the 1979 Soviet invasion and subsequent conflicts, while severe drought added to the nation's difficulties in 1998–2001. According to the World Bank, "economic growth has been strong and has generated better livelihoods" since 2001.
The economically active population in 2002 was about 11 million (out of a total of an estimated 29 million). As of 2005, the official unemployment rate is at 40%. The number of non-skilled young people is estimated at 3 million, which is likely to increase by some 300,000 per annum.
The nation's economy began to improve since 2002 due to the infusion of multi-billion US dollars in international assistance and investments, as well as remittances from expats. It is also due to dramatic improvements in agricultural production and the end of a four-year drought in most of the country.

Climate

With its coastline facing the Adriatic and Ionian seas, its highlands backed upon the elevated Balkan landmass, and the entire country lying at a latitude subject to a variety of weather patterns during the winter and summer seasons, Albania has a high number of climatic regions for so small an area. The coastal lowlands have typically Mediterranean weather; the highlands have a Mediterranean continental climate. In both the lowlands and the interior, the weather varies markedly from north to south.
The lowlands have mild winters, averaging about 7 °C. Summer temperatures average 24 °C. In the southern lowlands, temperatures average about 5 °C higher throughout the year. The difference is greater than 5°C during the summer and somewhat less during the winter.

Infrastructure

Currently the major cities of the country are linked with first class national roads. There is a four lane highway connecting the city of Durrës with Tirana and the city of Durrës with the city of Lushnje. Albania is partaking in the construction of what it sees as three major corridors of transportation. The major priority as of present is the construction of the four lane Durrës-Pristina highway which will link Kosovo with Albania's Adriatic coast. The portion of the highway which links Albania's north east border with Kosovo was completed in June 2009, as a result, cutting the time it takes to get from Kosovo to Durrës from six hours to two. Indeed the roads in northwestern Albania remain in poor condition as of summer 2009. It takes approximately 1H30 to drive the 35 km (22 mi) from the border of Montenegro to Shkodër.[citation needed] It is also worth noting that there are no road signs and no traffic lights within and around this city. The second priority is the construction of European corridor 8 linking Albania with the Republic of Macedonia and Greece. The third priority for the government is the construction of the north-south axis of the country; it is sometimes referred to as the Adriatic–Ionian motorway as it is part of a larger regional highway connecting Croatia with Greece along the Adriatic and Ionian coasts. By the end of the decade it is expected that the majority of the sections of these three corridors will have been built.[citation needed] When all three corridors are completed Albania will have an estimated 759 kilometers of highway linking it with its neighbors.

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More Information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albania
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