Foreign Aid
Through FY 1998, the United States committed approximately US$300 million to Albania’s economic and political transformation and to address humanitarian needs. At the time, this figure comprised about 10% of all bilateral and multilateral assistance offered since 1991. Italy ranks first in bilateral assistance and Germany third. The European Union (EU) has given about US$800 million since 1991 and pledged US$175 million in 1996–99.
In FY 1999, the United States was to provide $30 million through the Support for East European Democracy (SEED) Act, up from $27 million the previous year. The U.S. also was to provide an agricultural commodities grant of $10 million.
The $30 million Albanian-American Enterprise Fund (AAEF), launched in 1994, is actively making debt and equity investments in local businesses. AAEF is designed to harness private sector efforts to assist in the economic transformation. U.S. assistance priorities include promotion of agricultural development and a market economy, advancement of democratic institutions (including police training), and improvements in quality of life. The SEED funding request for Albania for FY 2000 was $25 million.
Read more about this topic: Foreign Relations Of Albania
Famous quotes containing the words foreign and/or aid:
“Friends, both the imaginary ones you build for yourself out of phrases taken from a living writer, or real ones from college, and relatives, despite all the waste of ceremony and fakery and the fact that out of an hour of conversation you may have only five minutes in which the old entente reappears, are the only real means for foreign ideas to enter your brain.”
—Nicholson Baker (b. 1957)
““A man,” said Oliver Cromwell, “never rises so high as when he knows not whither he is going.” Dreams and drunkenness, the use of opium and alcohol are the semblance and counterfeit of this oracular genius, and hence their dangerous attraction for men. For the like reason they ask the aid of wild passions, as in gaming and war, to ape in some manner these flames and generosities of the heart.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)