Albania

September / October 2022 Eurofish Magazine 5Country profiles: Albania and LithuaniaAquaculture: The state of the aquaculture feed sector –…

Eurofish International Organisation and the FAO Regional Office in Central Asia organised a series of three webinars on the fisheries and aquaculture sector in five countries,…

This article featured in EUROFISH Magazine 3 2020. A project consortium with partners from Albania and Croatia intends to improve the skills of fishermen by developing a master’s degree in marine fisheries and by upgrading vocational training to provide Albanian fishermen with internationally recognized skills. The agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors are the main employers in Albania with a share of more than 40%. With regards to fisheries, Albania, as an EU candidate country, is obliged to conduct reforms before it can implement the EU Common Fisheries Policy. At the same time, there is a trend to expand the Albanian fishing fleet with more trawlers and purse seiners. Compared to other Mediterranean fishing fleets, however, Albania’s fleet is small, accounting for less than 1% of the total.

EUROFISH co-organised a workshop on the identification and use of indicators for sustainable aquaculture in Albania.…

The Faculty of Agriculture and Environment at the Agricultural University of Tirana has a laboratory for aquaculture and fishery. The laboratory is based in Durres and is led by Dr Jerina Kolitari, a specialist in fish otoliths.

Mare Adriatik based in Shkoder is a company with interests in fishing, processing, and farming. It is the only enterprise to farm mussels in the bay in Shengjin in the north of the country as opposed to the traditional mussels cultivating grounds in the Butrinti Lagoon.

Along the eastern edge of Albania, where it borders Macedonia and Greece, are three lakes; Lake Ohrid, and the greater and lesser Prespa Lakes. Lake Ohrid, the largest of the three, is shared by Albania and Macedonia, with about a third of the approximately 350 sq. km surface area on the Albanian side of the border.

The fish processing company Koral is among the biggest players on the Albanian market. Relying both on domestic as well as imported raw material Koral processes and packages fish, crustaceans, and cephalopods for the domestic market as well as for exports.