As a result of mass departures, both legal and illegal, agriculture and the entire economy of the Sarandë district are at a difficult juncture. To the point that even the best land, its very core, is at risk of being left unsown. The decline and the loss of morale also appear to be continuing. Of course, it is pointless to theorize about what is good and what is bad; one has to work to change the situation. And the situation is changed by renewed thinking, but also by an organization capable of putting the new idea and spirit into practice. We speak with Sofo Thoma, head of the agriculture section, who was also elected a deputy to the People's Assembly. Mechanization workers have been requested and have arrived from other districts of the country to help; brigades and units in the SMT have been regrouped and reorganized; some cooperatives have been divided according to criteria that appear effective; crop structures are being adjusted to make them more dynamic, while the practice of maintaining plots and sowing merely for appearances is being abandoned, with work concentrated on those that have substantial yields. Nevertheless, the difficult situation continues. Larger, more important links in the chain must be addressed and activated. New forms of cooperation and other types of organization for the economies of the plain and the mountains are being discussed. We must hurry and quickly find and apply solutions that will both bind people to work, their interests and their homeland, and make the prospects for cooperation in these areas clear and secure. For example, an appropriate organizational form of production must be found for the situation that has arisen in the «Partizane» area; there is no reason to wait. For some time now, discussions and efforts have been under way to attract foreign business to agriculture in the district. Its particular conditions and character have led to the discovery of new forms. If people receive a high piecework wage, as happens in enterprises with unequal conditions, they will leave neither their jobs nor the area. Resolving these problems is an economic as well as a social emergency. Given the expansion of cultivated land, the farmer would also need simple machinery to make work easier and raise yields. Such requests should not surprise us, because if they do, we will not give thought to improving organization. Swift action benefits both people and production; delays discourage and drive both away. There are several towns and districts that seem made for business and foreign trade. Sarandë is one of them. But cross-border trade is not proceeding at the desired pace, and its positive effects on residents' economic lives are not becoming apparent as expected. Exports also need elements of renewal, says economist Thimjo Gozhdari. Specifically: relations between Tirana and the districts, and between executive committees and enterprises in the districts, remain too rigid. Excessive oversight continues, and economic relations with foreign countries must be freed from it. The ministries or the district still remain silent as coordinators, while enterprises are left waiting for an initiative. Initiative will surely also mean accountability for mutual arrangements, but centralization does not readily understand this, so as to make the producer the trader of his own goods as well. By finding outlets for its own products, the producer becomes more interested and also more resourceful both in trade and in the variety and quality of production. The producer cannot accept a market blockade; as can happen—and in fact does happen—to trade, they will find a way through and break the blockade. Initial efforts and experience should not be discarded, but activated. Only then can we speak of some renewal of the organizational links in exports. In the field of organization too, we must learn to support ideas […] …so that the number, following the work, interest and attention, and the prospects for cooperation in these areas may also be clear and secure. A suitable that has arisen, for example, in the “Partizani” there have been discussions and efforts to attract foreign business to the district’s agriculture. The special natural conditions urge us to act quickly, but the new social conditions also demand this and make it more urgent. Greek companies are closer, but there is no reason not to establish ties with Italian companies too, as has happened in other districts. It is well known how much rapid, high-quality progress the importation of technology brings to agriculture. So let it be used more widely, let the traditional organization be changed more quickly and the du-

Reforming economic life without coordinating the enterprise. The role and importance of the enterprise in economic life are considerable. But is our concept of enterprises complete? Can an enterprise organized according to today's model meet the requirements for reforming and rapidly developing the economy? The enterprise and production The basic requirement for every enterprise is to organize and manage production and services in order to meet the needs of people and the economy. But we have often conceived of the enterprise as a production unit as an organizational unit of a necessarily prescribed size. To measure them, we have used and continue to use the most diverse indicators, along with daring approaches and imaginative ideas. For example, Haxhi Muçai, director of land reclamation, suggests: “I would unhesitatingly transfer 50 percent of our enterprise’s investment in land reclamation to construction.” Is this excessive or premature? How could it be done, and what answer does this official give to his proposal? Many construction projects take a long time to complete and sometimes take just as long to become obsolete. (For example, work begun in 1991 may not be seen and touched until 1998 or 1999.) Investment in irrigation can be halted; work can be done where it can be improved, for example through sprinklers, installations, etc.; long-term projects can be shifted away from immediate priorities. The annual plan of the land-reclamation enterprise in Sarandë is 8 million lekë, while that of the construction enterprise is 13–14 million. Investments that can be postponed or curtailed, if transferred to construction, could provide apartments to house the population or tourist hotels built with foreign firms. This would ease the housing shortage, an urgent problem today; through the other route, foreign investment, the technical and technological renewal of the land-reclamation enterprise itself could also be achieved. Does this suggestion have a theoretical basis? Haxhi says that if the program for the village and the cooperative is being reformed, why not reform the investments connected with them as well? Does it have practical promise? The enterprise has applied an indexation scheme for housing in the countryside for its own employees; last year it built houses for its workers, who moved in and enjoyed their new homes. This practice continues this year too. The enterprise will also publicly post notices in the town, residential centers and villages: we have also advertised low-cost transport services; we respond to citizens’ requests for gravel and concrete blocks. citizens’ requests for gravel and concrete blocks. In other words, the proposal concerns the very profile and type of enterprises of this kind, so that they also take on a construction profile. This proposal may seem strangely exceptional. But, as we were saying: enough of theoretical taboos, clichés and skepticism. Organization too needs to be renewed and refreshed through new ideas and practices. They should be considered with respect and in a realistic, constructive spirit. …small and medium-sized. They withstand the harsh laws of the market economy and manage to survive alongside the enterprises of large firms. Technological developments on the one hand, and the ease of organizing and managing on the other, have made small and medium-sized enterprises quite profitable. Why does this happen? I will answer by beginning with a saying of the people of the Përmet area: «Once married, they move into a home of their own, so that the household may prosper». The young family becomes strongly attached to its home and sees the resources for its work to flourish. Workers should likewise be attached to the results of their enterprise’s work. For this purpose, I think we should move as soon as possible to organizing small and medium-sized enterprises. Regardless of ownership (that is, who owns them), there could be many enterprises with around 20 workers. How many such enterprises could be established, and where? Establishing small and medium-sized enterprises is advantageous in light industry, the food industry, transport, service sectors, power, construction, etc. With a limited number of workers, the conditions created by the current wave of the scientific and technological revolution make it practically possible to increase the productivity of each worker. Here various questions arise: what should the size of an enterprise be, what should its activity be, who should manage it, and so on. All of these can be resolved if we conceive of the enterprise as we have until now. Besides this, the «obstacles» created and still being created by production in enterprises organized according to today’s model are numerous. Small and medium-sized enterprises can be established in every «corner» of the economy. For instance, greenhouses of 2, 3 or 5 hectares could be set up as independent enterprises in agriculture; poultry farms, even small ones; bread-processing factories in every district or town; workshops and factories of various kinds processing agricultural products, grapes, chocolate, preserves, detergents and perfumes, together with some local trading firms and service enterprises in municipal businesses, etc. This approach in the service sectors should be pursued alongside privatization. In the first phase of entering the rules of the market economy, care must be taken to establish the rules of the game for the «enterprise». Taking responsibility for organizing and managing the work and production of a collective of 20–50 workers, with all its consequences, is a form of free initiative. Who should take responsibility for managing small and medium-sized enterprises? The present state administration has many employees without work, or who will become surplus as the state’s responsibility and role in managing enterprises are reduced. Many tasks that state administration employees have carried out until now will henceforth be regulated by the power and logic of the law in a state governed by the rule of law. The first phase of the transition to a market economy will be accompanied by the resolution of employment problems. This concern already exists today; small and medium-sized enterprises will resolve it to some extent. The enterprise and monopoly It is a well-known fact that in our country the number of enterprises that are the sole producers of a particular product is large in every branch of the economy. For example, for some items (spare parts), the Autotractor Combine in Tirana is the only one. The same is true of the food combine, the electrotechnical enterprise and many, many other enterpris-

FROM ONE DISTRICT TO ANOTHER - PUKË - Among the district’s qualitative indicators that have attracted attention is the overfulfilment of the volume of construction and assembly work. Has Pukë had winter and frost? Yet coping with them, perhaps more than in other enterprises, has not… industrial production, doors and windows, etc., with overfulfilment in making final preparations to hand over the first apartments of this year, particularly in Fushë-Arrëz. How were these indicators achieved? You can get the answer from workers and brigade leaders, none of whom recorded an unjustified absence from work. Kujtimi, the workshop supervisor, speaks of the high readiness of the machinery in use. Thus all those organizing the work, from the basic unit right up to the enterprise administration, devoted themselves to numerous tasks and have results to report on the eve of May 1. Work can be done elsewhere as it is in this enterprise. This year the sawmill workers were divided into two enterprises, one for wood processing and the other for forest exploitation. The tasks […] throughout the country, where workers and brigadiers work, who did not record a single unjustified absence from work. Kujtimin, the workshop manager, speaks about the work organizers, devoted themselves to their many tasks and have things to report on the eve of May 1. This enterprise shows that work of this kind can be done elsewhere too. The tasks […] Among the market’s qualitative indicators, the one that draws attention is the exceeding of the construction and assembly volume. Has there been frost damage in Pukë? Perhaps more than in other enterprises, the measures taken to deal with it have not produced results for builders in the towns of Pukë and Fushë-Arrëz. This year, work has also been reorganized in the mines: the enterprises here have been divided into two. The effects of the division are apparent, but the deficits persist. There is experience at the Tuci and Kçirë mines, but the more important mines, such as Qafë-Bari and Lak Roshi, have major gaps. Here are the consequences: at Enterprise No. 1, ore production has reached only 78 percent. Almost the same is true at No. 2. Copper concentrate is down by 686 tons. The failure to meet targets is also affected by the failure to ship copper from the mines, where the factories in Fushë-Arrëz have hardly had a single day’s planned production achieved. In short, if we organized the work better, these important enterprises in the district of Pukë would not have the shortfalls they do. GJON GJONI

This question should concern us all. Widespread damage is being observed. Footpaths often run between plots sown with wheat, and sometimes, as if nothing were wrong, herds of livestock calmly graze among them. Every agricultural economy in this district has damage of this kind. It is most pronounced in the agricultural cooperatives of Shelli, Derjan, Kremull, Bater, etc. I happened to travel through the villages these days, and the question came up in conversations: Will we have a harvest this year or not? Why are people indifferent, and why is the law not being enforced? How much damage has been caused by the cooperative chairmen, bearing in mind that in some villages the damage amounts to several hectares? Do they not care about communal property, or do they turn a deaf ear and a blind eye, letting things slide so as not to upset one person or another? Apparently, this year in this district the wheat fields have become grazing meadows for the cooperative’s livestock. But what are the cooperative administrations doing? Shameful! Are we really going to help the process of democratization this way, by putting the harvest and the people’s bread in doubt? Therefore, the law must also be enforced. Today we buy wheat from abroad with foreign currency. Why should we not strive to save that foreign currency for something else and produce our own bread?

Yesterday, the World Bank mission, which has come to our country regarding Albania’s accession to this international organization, and the Albanian State Bank organized a seminar in one of the institution’s premises on the World Bank’s organizational structure, operations, legislation, etc. Directors of departments and specialists from the Albanian State Bank, the State Bank for Foreign Relations, the Ministry of Finance, the State Planning Commission, ministries and other institutions attended. The head of the mission, Adil Kanan, an executive director at the World Bank, thanked those present for attending and stressed that the seminar was necessary and important. He expressed his pleasure that the mission he leads is the first World Bank mission to visit Albania and that it is part of the process through which cooperation between the World Bank and Albania will soon begin. Our visit, he said, is an initial one and will be brief; it will be followed by another World Bank mission in the near future. He then explained the June objective. He went on to describe the World Bank’s management structure and its bodies, such as the Board of Governors, the Board of Executive Directors, the groups of countries participating in the Bank, etc. He also spoke about the preliminary work required for admission to the World Bank, such as determining an assistance strategy and priority areas for investment, etc. He elaborated on the conditions for providing assistance and financing studies, projects, etc., their effective implementation, and the provision of technical assistance, etc. Mission member Lui Forzhe, a lawyer who deals with the legal procedures for membership in the World Bank, spoke about the Bank’s structure, which consists of five institutions, such as the State Bank, the International Finance Corporation, the Economic Development Institute, etc. He discussed the sources and criteria for providing funds and loans, guarantees, etc., to help accelerate the economic development of World Bank members, particularly developing countries. Frank J. Lysy, an economist, spoke about the operation of the Institute for …the form and structure of its bodies, such as the Board of Governors, the Executive Directors of groups of countries participating in this Bank, etc. He also spoke about the preliminary work that needs to be done for admission to the World Bank, such as defining the strategy for assistance, priority areas for investment, etc. He explained the conditions for providing aid, financing studies, projects, etc., and ensuring their effective implementation, as well as providing technical assistance, etc. Mission member Lui Forzhe, a lawyer dealing spoke about the structure of this Bank, Bank members, particularly underdeveloped countries. Frank J. Lysy, an economist, spoke about the functioning of the Institute for […] this party. (ATS H)

On April 22, 1991, the Ministry of Justice approved the request of the Initiative Commission to establish the Social Democratic Party of Albania. This party, as its representative stated, is in accordance with the decision of the Presidium of the People’s Assembly No. 7442, dated 17.12.1990, “On the establishment of political organizations and associations.” The relevant order, which enters into force immediately, was handed to the Initiative Commission for the establishment of this party. (ATSH)

As part of the general reform of the BPSH, the first national conference to establish the trade union federation of healthcare workers held its proceedings yesterday in the hall of the workers’ rest home in Durrës. Representatives and delegates elected by the trade union councils of the healthcare system from 22 districts of the country took part. The conference stressed that this federation is pluralist and independent of political parties, and aims to expand its activities on the basis of the experience of the European trade union movement. It will fight for the implementation of legislation, regulations and guidelines of the Ministry of Health concerning working and service conditions, acting as a constructive opposition that will not tolerate arbitrary bureaucratic actions. The conference approved the draft statute in principle and elected the federation’s governing bodies. Pirro Prifti was elected chairman of the governing council of the trade union federation of healthcare workers, and Rifat Dalipi was elected secretary. Representatives from several healthcare institutions in Tirana, Durrës, Shkodër and Vlorë did not attend the conference. The conference called on their employees to join this federation, as the only trade union body that will stand up for the protection of their interests, problems and concerns. (According to ATSH)

- DURRËS - Recently, another shipment of food aid from Italy arrived in Durrës as part of the general aid allocated to Albania by the Italian government. The city committee, the neighborhood people’s councils and the councils of the united villages identified, on the basis of a survey, the families that would receive this aid free of charge. They are families with lower incomes, many children, or members with disabilities. 16,000 liters of oil have been made available to them, and distribution has begun. More than 5,000 families are expected to benefit from the aid. In addition to the quantity already distributed to families according to the criteria mentioned above, a further 80 tons of rice will also be distributed. SOTIRAQ GJORDENI

Observation from Tropoja Recently, another shipment of food aid arrived in Durrës… In the context of the deepening democratization processes throughout the country, the daily press plays an important role by informing the public about these processes. But when do we get the newspapers? They arrive late, and sometimes they do not arrive at all. Only 2–3 months ago, newspapers were distributed almost the same day in nearly 70 percent of the villages in the Tropoja district. Now in Llugaj, which is only 45 mil- […] away from Bajram Curri on foot, they arrive a day late. While discussing this problem, I learned that they also arrive a day late in town, whereas according to the press distribution office, the transport vehicle has broken down and the newspapers have been left in Fushë-Arrëz. The distribution worker does not wait; they leave without a second thought for the village, where they have work to do in their own yard. We appeal to “Zëri i popullit”—although this applies to all press publications—and ask that those who are paid to do this work be held accountable, and that newspapers arrive every day as they used to. NDUE ZIQI

This question should concern us all. Damage on a large scale is being discussed. Often, between…

…tor of the [cut-off section] Diaspora Elio Eyal, of the Jews, … USA, carried out stu- […] Opera […] program […] Palace of […] Association […] with […] ATSH […]