The Port of Durrës is one of the most important port infrastructures, not only for Albania but for the entire region, as it serves as the main entry point for goods to Albania and Kosovo, as well as a transit hub for North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia, and vice versa.

The congestion caused by the increase in the flow of vehicles and containers has led to a rise in the number of scans conducted by the scanner, which now reach 330-350 vehicles per day, causing extended delays in this process.

This meeting followed a previous one with these entrepreneurs, attended by the Minister of State for Entrepreneurship and Business Climate, Delina Ibrahimaj, the head of the Border Police, and the General Director of Customs, regarding the progress of scanning at the Port of Durrës.

At the conclusion of the meeting, an agreement was signed between the General Directorate of Customs and the General Directorate of the State Police for “An addition to the joint Order of both directorates for the approval of the rules ‘On cooperation for the execution of procedures and joint actions of the Police and Customs Authorities.'” The agreement was signed by the Director General of Customs, Mr. Gent Gazheli, and the Director General of the State Police, Mr. Ilir Proda.

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Prime Minister Edi Rama: I thank you for your presence and for this opportunity, especially because this is the moment for us to make this change. And, to start from the end so that I don’t forget, we have a startup in Albania that has been supported by our programs and operates at the Port of San Francisco. It has done quite a valuable work there, with a very significant reduction in costs. So, we spoke with the minister, as the ministry follows the startup programs, and we will bring this here, so you can have a presentation on how it operates at the Port of San Francisco, and then, in cooperation with the Port of Durrës, we will explore the possibility of adopting it with you. It is directly related to what was just said at the end, but the main topic we are here to discuss is the scanner issue. I also want to reiterate something I said a long time ago, and I stand by the same thing: this is one of the most wrong concessions that could have been imagined. An atypical concession contract that we have inherited.

We haven’t been able to challenge it due to the fact that, as it is structured, it would create a very high cost in arbitration. We have tried to make it operational and reduce the cost for you, and we had a negotiation back then, where we reduced it from 45 euros, if I’m not mistaken, to 22. But still, it remains a completely wrong concession, because the scanning of trucks is not your need; it is the state’s need.

So, the state does the scanning of trucks for its own work, not for yours. For security reasons, for the fight against smuggling, this is the state’s responsibility, not yours. In other words, the state can’t say: ‘I’ll do my job, but you give me money to do my job.’ Meanwhile, the state already collects money through taxes, and with that money, it can do its own work.

Therefore, we dictate for concessions, but those who point fingers at us for concessions have created this absurd type of concession. Meanwhile, we have made concessions that benefit the citizens. For example, we really did a Public-Private Partnership for the sterilization of medical equipment, but we didn’t make the patients pay for it. We really did it for laboratory tests, but we didn’t make the patients pay for it. These are partnerships that provide much better services, and meanwhile, the private sector pays over a much longer term, in situations where the state cannot immediately do these things.

Meanwhile, we are facing a situation that will last until 2030, as you all know the timeframe. But what we can do today, and what we will do, is that, taking into account the curriculum of foreign companies, considering the nature of your activities, considering your contributions—not just to the economy in general, but your contributions as taxpayers and everything combined—we will start operating not on the basis of 100% control, but based on risk control.

So, out of 100 exits from the port, only in 10 cases will scanning be done. This is a reasonable number to start with, and then we may go even lower and move to a scheme that’s not completely transparent in the sense that it’s not separated with you, but a smaller number of checks. However, these will be surprise checks, done only to assess, always based on risk, or a signal if there are any issues.

The truth is that beyond the overwhelming cost of this type of concession for all operators, it has its benefits, and we must say this—it has significantly reduced smuggling, etc.

So today, I told them, I even spoke with the Director of Customs, and I told him we don’t need to go and talk about this, this is something that needs to be done. Let’s make it a fact, and as far as I know, something will be signed here that will make this a reality. From today onwards, you’ll have this type of regime. As for the issue of drivers, this is a problem you know better than I do. It’s a much bigger issue than just Albania. There are other countries facing this challenge with professionals and drivers, especially for this kind of work, which involves stress and a particular kind of fatigue.

You’ve raised the wages significantly, as you mentioned, 1500-2000 euros. Maybe they need to be raised even further, I don’t know, as it’s not up to me to say how much they should be or what competitors are offering. As for the issue of training, we are ready to build a collaboration immediately. We can build it with the Ministry of Infrastructure, with the port in cooperation with the Port Authority, together with you, and with the support of the Ministry of Economy, as a vocational school. A school that’s not a typical school in the sense of ‘come and stay there for four years,’ but more of a kind of school where specific courses are offered, which would benefit your drivers for all those specialized processes that are particular in your case. And it’s not just about taking a truck and going somewhere else; you also need to understand all these processes you mentioned.

So, we are definitely going to do this. We just need you to be a bit proactive in the sense that you make a concrete proposal: how do you see this structure, how many people are needed, what do you think is required from the state’s perspective, and then we will take it and review it with the structure of vocational education that we have in the Ministry of Economy, along with the Minister of Entrepreneurship, and we will make it happen—no problem at all.

It’s true about the opening of e-Albania, as just six days ago I got confirmation from a subject. On behalf of the transporters of the Albanian customs agencies who support both Albanian and foreign transporters, we thank the customs administration, which in recent years has made a big and qualitative leap in addressing technical customs issues. There are still daily issues that require solutions, but they are our technical problems.

A good innovation in the cooperation of goods between Albania and Kosovo, and a major development that has brought the businesses of Kosovo closer, is the opening of the direct customs office at the Port of Durrës or Porto Romano. However, the only problem is that the issue of customs transit from the starting points, from the Port of Durrës to the final destination in Kosovo, needs to be resolved.

Prime Minister Edi Rama:

Meanwhile, the last thing I have is that we definitely need your contribution regarding the competitiveness of the port. What do I mean? I mean, what are the things we need to consider from the perspective of what we are discussing and from others that you surely have, and if you sit down and gather them all together to make the port as competitive as possible in terms of tariffs, in terms of time, we need to set very ambitious targets for time, and here we cannot discuss the police, etc. We need to set very ambitious targets, we need to create a general regulation here at the port, director, that will also serve the transfer to Porto Romano so that this is done at this speed and that is done at that speed.