PRESS RELEASE
Speech by Mr. Ardian Fullani, Governor of the Bank of Albania, in the first lecture of the series of Bank of Albania lectures

Honored ladies and gentlemen,

It is a special pleasure for me to address you today on the occasion of the first Bank of Albania lecture, part of a series of public lectures that our institution intends to organize during this year. I avail myself of the opportunity to thank the GTZ Office in Tirana as well as Prof. Michael Bolle and Prof. Helge Berger for their assistance and support in realizing this series of lectures.

The series of public lectures is part of the measures that our institution is undertaking to promote and encourage scientific research related to the economic, monetary and financial developments in our country, in the region and beyond.

Today's lecture serves to remind us of the important scientific profile of the Bank of Albania, along with its operational profile related to the fulfillment of its legal tasks, such as maintaining price stability, supervising the financial system, ensuring the smooth functioning of the payment systems and compiling a great part of the statistical data of our country.

We are earnestly committed to the improvement of economic research within the Bank of Albania, being aware that notwithstanding the accomplishments, there is still room for further improvement and progress in this area. However, I am convinced that the cooperation with the other actors interested in this process is of primary importance for us in order to succeed in these efforts.

In this framework, the Bank of Albania is interested in intensifying the cooperation with the economic faculties and with the other centers specialized in economic research in our country. This cooperation will certainly enable the absorption of specialized academic input, through the participation of university staff in various scientific projects, jointly with the staff of our institution. At the same time, I would like to express my conviction that a closer cooperation will ensure an optimal use of human resources of both parties and will serve for revitalizing the scientific research in our universities.

Another important dimension of the cooperation with academic institutions lies in the establishment of closer relations with the excellent students of the economic faculties, intending to promote their interest in focusing their further academic qualification on central banking issues.

I avail myself of this opportunity to communicate the launching of the "Governor's Award" project. This project will consist in organizing an open competition, where all the interested students can compete with their diploma theses on issues related to the Bank of Albania activity area. Best diploma theses will be selected by an ad hoc commission, and material rewards will also be given.

I express my belief that these initiatives of the Bank of Albania will be welcomed by the academic and students' community in our country, and along with the earnest commitment of the Bank of Albania staff, they will contribute to the achievement of the major goal of improving economic research in our country.

Thank you!