Posted on 06/08/2014 3:33:56 PM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
There has been a jump in the number of Italians moving to Albania for new opportunities, with 19,000 taking up work or study visas, Italian media reported on Thursday.
The figures from the Albanian government represent “a real boom”, sociologist Rando Devole was quoted in Il Messaggero as saying.
“That says a lot about the Italian crisis, but also about the growth of Albania through its own immigrants,” he said.
Albanian immigrants to Italy have acted as ambassadors for their country, “convincing owners of small businesses in Italy to open in another part of the Adriatic coast,” Devole said.
Although Albania is not yet a member of the EU - the country submitted its formal application in 2009 - Italians reportedly face few barriers in moving there.
“There isn’t the bureaucracy. You can open a business in a day without any particular restrictions,” Neritan Ceka, Albania’s ambassador to Italy, was quoted as saying.
“At the moment Albanians are more optimistic than the Italians, just like Italians were in the 1960s,” according to Ceka.
Albanians have good reason to be feeling positive; according to the World Bank, the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) was set to grow by 2.1 percent this year and 3.0 percent in 2015.
Whereas Albania’s economy grew by 1.3 percent last year, Italy’s contracted by 1.9 percent.
Forecasts for economic growth in Italy this year range from the government’s 0.8 percent to the 0.6 percent put forward by the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission.
Unless these are Albanians who claim Italian citizenship.
There are NO borders, dude..it’s just one big happy continent...
What’s so absurd about Westerners moving to third world countries seeking work when their own countries cannot provide enough?
You’d be surprised how many Americans spent a large portion of their lives in the Middle and Far East and how many had wanted to stay there.
I have no objection to Westerners moving to third world countries to work.
I find it bizarre that they would have to do so because there is no work in their native land.
There is work in Italy, however the labor laws are so stiff (13 and 14 month pays, you can’t fire people, etc) that companies don’t hire. thanks to Obamacare, the US is heading down the same path...
There’s a headline I never expected to see.
When “colonialism” of the 1700s and 1800s was going on, the immigration was driven in large part by a growing population. Better diets, improved sanitation and such led to higher child survival - and adults who immigrated to other continents to find land and opportunity.
It is amazing that Europe is seeing similar immigration, when it has fewer young people than the generation that is retired. They didn’t really have the WW2 Baby Boom we did because too many of their men died, and many of the survivors left from 1920s to 1950s.
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