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FinObservatory

External balance sheets

Albania

In 2024, Albania had a net international investment position of -41.2% of GDP, owning 50.6% abroad and owing 91.8%. Across the four instrument legs it reports in 2024, 64.4% is equity-like (direct investment and portfolio equity) and the remainder is portfolio debt and other investment.

The balance sheet through time

YearNet positionAssetsLiabilitiesReservesCurrent accountCrisis
1970n/an/an/an/an/a
1975n/an/an/an/an/a
1980n/an/an/an/a0.8%
1985n/an/an/an/a-1.6%
1990n/an/an/an/a-5.3%sovereign debt
1995-3.5%18.1%21.6%8.4%-0.4%
2000-13.8%32.4%46.1%17.7%-4.5%
2005-16.9%29.9%46.8%17.4%-7.1%
2010-33.9%38.6%72.5%20.7%-11.4%
2015-42.7%61.6%104.3%27.1%-8.6%
2020-58.8%65.1%123.9%30.4%-8.6%
2024-41.2%50.6%91.8%23.0%-2.4%

Source: External Wealth of Nations (Lane & Milesi-Ferretti), 1970-2024 All figures as a share of GDP. Every fifth year shown, plus the first and last. Crisis column is the FinObservatory atlas, deduplicated across its five chronologies. Methodology

What it owes, and in what form

The composition of external liabilities. Direct investment and portfolio equity are equity-like: their value falls when the country does badly, so the foreign investor shares the loss. Portfolio debt and other investment (mostly cross-border bank lending) are fixed claims that do not.

YearDirect investmentPortfolio equityPortfolio debtOther investment
1995first26.2%0.0%0.0%73.8%
2024latest64.4%0.0%6.3%29.3%

Source: External Wealth of Nations (Lane & Milesi-Ferretti), 1970-2024 Each leg as a share of the four legs, which sum to 100 percent. EWN's total-liabilities aggregate also carries a financial-derivatives leg, left out here on both sides of the ratio, so these shares describe a smaller stock than reported total liabilities wherever that derivative leg is non-zero. First and latest year with a complete instrument split (30 years available). Methodology

Bilateral direct-investment positions

Where Albania's direct-investment positions are located, and where inward positions come from. These are annual position stocks, not flows. The reported World observation supplies each total; the ranked counterpart rows describe its published geography and can be incomplete or confidential.

Outward direct investment

Positions abroad, grouped by the immediate destination economy.

Official reported World total

$1.64B2024

Top reported counterpart economies

EconomyPosition
Kosovo KOS$681.7M
Italy ITA$395.5M
United States USA$117.7M
United Kingdom GBR$98.6M
Greece GRC$87.1M
Macedonia MKD$63.6M
Germany DEU$36.1M
Belgium BEL$16.1M
Netherlands NLD$15.2M
Spain ESP$13.2M

Coverage in 2024: 84 named economies among 95 partner rows. Codes outside the shared country directory are not ranked: GX225, GX226, GX451, GX454, GX509, GX510, GX641, GX837, U005, U150, U202. G001 is the World total and is not ranked or added to the partner rows.

Inward direct investment

Positions in this economy, grouped by the immediate investor economy.

Official reported World total

$15.43B2024

Top reported counterpart economies

EconomyPosition
Netherlands NLD$2.61B
Switzerland CHE$2.37B
Canada CAN$2.00B
Italy ITA$1.66B
Turkey TUR$1.28B
Bulgaria BGR$913.6M
Austria AUT$850.0M
France FRA$609.1M
Germany DEU$498.2M
Kosovo KOS$439.6M

Coverage in 2024: 123 named economies among 135 partner rows. Codes outside the shared country directory are not ranked: GX225, GX226, GX451, GX454, GX509, GX510, GX641, GX837, TX983, U005, U150, U202. G001 is the World total and is not ranked or added to the partner rows.

Reported versus counterpart-derived

Official reported data (O) are the reporter economy's submission. Counterpart-derived data (SCC) are IMF staff calculations from counterpart submissions. They are alternative views of the same direction, not addends, so they are shown side by side and never summed.

DirectionOfficial reported (O)Counterpart-derived (SCC)
outward$1.64B (2024)$956.9M (2024)
inward$15.43B (2024)$7.50B (2024)

Source: IMF Direct Investment Positions by Counterpart Economy Values are full US dollars, scaled only for display. Top 10 named economies shown. Methodology

Reading this page

The atlas records 4 distinct crisis episodes for Albania since 1970. The crisis column marks them beside the balance sheet, and it is deliberately left to the reader to look. This page does not narrate a causal story about deteriorating positions and subsequent crises, because for most countries no such story survives inspection, and the cross-country table on the index shows why.

EWN is a reconstruction. Where a country never reported a position, the authors estimate it, and the file carries no flag separating a reported cell from an estimated one, so this page cannot mark them either.

Methodology