ALARM OF ALBANIAN AND FOREIGN INVESTORS, THE STATE IS BANKRUPTING US The law that buries all businesses On page 8 EDITORIAL Treason Carlo BOLLINO In a panic! I have counted them hair by hair, analysis after analysis, my clients. There were, many friends, 31. How many clients will remain if the proposed change in the sales tax is fully implemented? None. Better to close the office and stay at home. This is the first nervous reaction, but a very widespread one these days among traders. Above all among those who live from trade. Hotels, shops, supermarkets, bars, restaurants, boutiques, cinemas and currency exchange offices have also been seriously affected by the new law. Which means that if it proves merciless, this law will bury a large part of the country’s economy. By contrast, foreign entrepreneurs are also panicking. This is the latest reaction of a Turkish businessman who has invested a lot of money in Albania. He is thinking of selling his entire business and leaving Albania. This businessman said that if he had known that the Albanian government was preparing to impose a 20 percent tax on the sale of goods, without deducting costs and expenses, he would never have come to Albania. This is a very widespread opinion. At least among my foreign entrepreneur friends. Because they consider this sudden and unjustified change to a fiscal law on sales to be a betrayal by the Albanian government. It is clear: no foreign investor will continue to invest in Albania once they understand that the Albanian state treats them the same as small traders and fiscal fraudsters, considering them all thieves and applying the 20 percent profit levy not on real profit, but on turnover. At the end of hell one can recognize that it is a real hell only after having gone through hell oneself. This is also the real danger of the Berisha government. This administration of the state cannot see the horror of the financial catastrophe it is creating, because it does not know that horror itself. How can Prime Minister Meksi, the unfortunate administrator of Holivik, according to the testimony of my burnt-handed Co-Chairman, Hashim Gjyreli and Luçiani, understand the public horror and public punishments that such a change in the law will bring? Does he perhaps think that all entrepreneurs in Albania consider it acceptable and pleasurable in their business to earn twenty percent more? No! The truth is the opposite, 100! We sounded the alarm to the government in writing. Through the USA, to the officials very close to Meksi, we have explained that this law is economically, politically and legally wrong. We have given all the necessary documents for the government to understand the problem. We asked it to delay the implementation of the turnover madness or at least modify the law. We did everything possible. The chairman of Albanian entrepreneurs has convinced at least some ministers. Foreign entrepreneurs, through the ambassadors of their countries, have made it clear what the result will be: they will encourage their investors to leave Albania. But the government has not listened to us. When asked a few days ago, Prime Minister Meksi declared that the Albanian government has no intention of changing anything. Why? Because foreign and Albanian entrepreneurs are cheating? No! It is clear. Because entrepreneurs are a financial corporation. And for that, according to the government, everyone must pay the same. This is the petty logic of a small government. If it makes this mistake, we Albanian and foreign entrepreneurs will continue to calmly, persistently and publicly explain to them what economic catastrophe the government is preparing. We will keep sounding the alarm until it withdraws from this madness. Or we will be forced to shut down our economic activity in Albania. And in that case, it will not be our fault, but the fault of the Government of Albania and of the ridiculous cowardly state with which this country is governed and understands that hundreds and thousands of jobs may also disappear. Continues on page 8 On the Internet, the secret talks with Clinton

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Pandi MUÇO I am surprised by President Clinton, because we have no politics, nor the regime- we try to prove the protagonist with hobbies. Thus and such Ollivine[?], the secretaries of our political statements of KLAS in Reno, with the Secretary of General of the administration of a congressman and the office that with Engel’s terminology and with other congressmen. No, the exploitation of hands and with Kosovo, to the post- USA. I Molej do to HOBIK, according to the reports of the co-chairs of dekrm- Presidential, the river in Panden. For the matter of ns- A banden, for the cleanliness of their- core of maintenance, perf- si- ukn economically[?] for the situation- for public service. There are also have given with the fingers and qyri- nhesove with influences- po- dive in power to be. These substitutions have ter- hequr with mention and fur- main objective of the pushed to arouse- qa te gjore with us, the official, fuane with meviu[?], but there are also more, to the ni- mbhye with ne pulte, dushe of the carried. Superduke port of the vja and me mevi[?], dushe of the Very desirable, but The weapon with one body Continues on page 4

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