Small Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) is one of the most important engines of economic growth in Albania. They make a significant contribution to local and global trade and also to the national economic development. SMEs have the largest proportion of total Albanian employment, almost 78% of the total number of employed people. They generally face difficulties in financing and investing decisions, globalization, and other matters, mainly because of their inappropriate formal financial reports. These enterprises must prepare adequate financial statements and proper accounts to deal with third parties’ needs and ensure stakeholder’s confidence. This requires financial statements to be prepared by international financial reporting standards (IFRS), national accounting standards, and local government laws. Therefore, the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) provided a new standard to ensure the required financial reporting quality for SMEs. The main focus of this study is to examine the attitudes of financial statement’s information’ users in Albania towards the adoption of this financial reporting standard for SMEs as progress on the general financial reporting process in Albania, and also to estimate their capabilities and interests on this matter.

Albanian banking system is the most developed component of the financial system. Since the creation of the Albanian banking system with two levels in 1992, and its subsequent liberalization, the Albanian banking market has undergone substantial changes. Albanian banking system consists of 16 wholly owned private banks of which the majority are foreign-owned and only 3 are domestically owned banks. The main purpose of this paper is to study the Albanian banking market over the last decade through indicators that express market competition as one of the main directions of its development. The article refers to the beginning period of the global financial crisis which had an impact in the Albanian banking market. To achieve this goal are used theoretical knowledge and indexes that are used to calculate the level of competition in the banking market. Working methodology is based on statistical analysis of secondary data obtained from the Bank of Albania, commercial banks operating in Albania, the Albanian Ministry of Finance etc. Through the analysis of market indexes will try to give an overview on the current situation of the Albanian banking market. The end will conclude in several features highlighting banking markets in Albania and provide some recommendations based on the experience of other countries and the opportunities for such development in the Albanian banking market.

In general, the credit risk is considered as more problematic risk for the banking system. Credit given by banks is divided into loans for business and loans to individuals. The effects of the financial and debt crisis are also felt in Macedonia. This is especially noticeable after 2010, from the growth of non-performing loans against total loans granted. The non-performing individuals' loan is a measure of credit risk of individuals. It is of particular interest to investigate the factors that determine the behavior of non-performing loans to individuals. This study sheds light on the effects that macroeconomic factors have on the credit risk of individuals. The analysis of time series and the rigorous application of the econometric model challenged the strong and significant connection of the risk free interest rate, the index of house prices, the exchange rate and economic growth of the credit risk of individuals. All these factors have a positive relationship with this risk, with the exception of economic growth. It is more than logical that an improvement of economic growth will lower the credit risk of the individual, because the rate of non-performing loans to individuals will decrease. Economic growth means an increase in the opportunities to pay back the loan. Policies with focus on economic growth, could lead to a softening of the credit risk of individuals.

This study focuses on the institutional factors of Albania's economic development, from a comparative, dynamic, and regional European perspective. We use longitudinal data for the years 2002, 2014, and 2019 and a small selection of 13 countries in the region and some EU member states. Descriptive statistics, graphical representation, and econometric modeling are used for data analysis. The purpose of the study is to discuss, in real and comparative terms with the region and beyond, the economic growth of Albania based on the GDP per capita indicator, as well as to identify and evaluate dynamically the role of institutions in the country's development through important institutional factors, such as the effectiveness of government, rule of law, corruption, etc. The analysis shows that Albania's economic performance is weakover the last two decades. This is reflected in the insufficient relative growth of GDP per capita, the small increase in per capita income, and especially in the low increase in income for every 1% of relative growth. In these indicators, Albania continues to be consistently in the lowest positions in the region and beyond. The study highlights the strong link between economic growth and the effectiveness of government, the rule of law, and weak control over corruption. Improving corruption control by one unit in the range (-2.5 to 2.5) is expected to improve GDP per capita by an average of about 2.2 times. Improving the rule of law by one point is expected to improve GDP per capita on average by about 2.4 times. The country's sluggish economic performance is mainly attributed to weak institutions.   Received: 4 March 2021 / Accepted: 6 May 2021 / Published: 8 July 2021

An efficient rural financial market plays an important role in the development and growth of productivity in agriculture and livestock. This means setting up a financial system to meet the typical functions of a market economy and above all the mobilization and allocation of financial resources to this sector and coordination with sources of donors and of the state budget. In this context, perhaps it is useful to set up a bank profiled in agriculture and rural development, ending anarchy of today and by establishing opportunities for better coverage to the growing needs of this sector. This would help for the displacement of available funds to the agrarian sector, either through a specialized bank without curb or deter the existing commercial banks, and the combination with other efforts in the form of investment funds, would constitute a good opportunity for to finance agricultural development with nonpublic resources.