PRESS RELEASE
Complimentary speech of the Governor of the Bank of Albania, Mr. Ardian Fullani, during the opening of the V Bank of Albania International Conference The Central Banking in the Time of Integration, Durrës, 24 - 25 March 2005

Dear friends, honorable participants, dear ladies and gentleman,

It is my pleasure to have you as my guests in this important event for Bank of Albania. I believe this conference to be one of the highest points in our yearly activity and for this reason I feel good when I see in the hall many friends of mine, honorable professors, outstanding economists, government officials, bankers as well as representatives from the media.

We decided to call this conference, The Central Bank in the Time of Integration because of the vital importance this difficult process has for our country and a number of other countries represented in this activity. We have by now understood that without financial integration we may not have true integration. I understand that we need more revenues, more political stability, and more cultural and social integration but of course, the so called financial integration is important as well. In this context, I believe that the role of the institution that I head, the role of the banking system, and that of the financial sector in more general terms, is very important and the challenges to be faced in this direction are numerous.

Strengthening the financial stability of the country, increasing the efficiency of monetary policy and other economic policies, increasing the flexibility of the financial market, increasing the national territory covered by the banking business and increasing financial intermediation are necessary conditions for the true integration of country with the developed part of the old continent.

I believe that what we need concerns the marketing of values and that of the truth on the Albanian reality. I hope this conference will be a modest contribution in this direction. I wish banks and finance to be the vanguard in the road towards integration.

I sincerely hope that the papers to be presented in this conference and the discussions of the participants will be a concrete step in this direction. For this reason, I believe that the contribution of all participants will be tangible.

Allow me to one more time wish successful proceedings.