One of the biggest investments of the Bank of Albania to guarantee our currency’s integrity is the construction of the new building of Currency Issue Centre, which started operating in 2012. The closed and automated cycle of controlling processing, packaging and shredding of banknotes takes place in this building. Soon professional expertise on banknotes and coins suspected to be counterfeit will be made, hence fulfilling one of the obligations of the Albanian state in view of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement. Foreign-exchange reserve management Holding and managing Albania’s foreign-exchange reserve to preserve financial stability of the economy is another constitutional function of the Bank of Albania. The gross foreign-exchange reserve was up by EUR 65 million in 2012, registering EUR 1.972 million at the end of December 2012. Payment system Fulfilling its legal duty, the Bank of Albania promotes smooth functioning of payment systems to support the monetary policy implementation and maintain financial stability. During 2012, Lek interbank transactions were cleared and settled timely, efficiently and safely, conform to rules and procedures of both systems (ARCH and AIPS). Also, several regulations and manuals were reviewed and drafted, consisting in strengthening the supervision and further developing the Albanian payment system. Improvement of statistics The year 2012 pointed to improved statistics as a legal responsibility of the Bank of Albania. During this year, a model was drafted to improve the balance of payments statistics and the international investment position, aiming to approximate the national statistics system with the ECB and ESCB standards.

Also, the objectives under the IPA-2009 project on “Regional statistical cooperation programme for the Balkans countries” were successfully completed and project coordinators have commended the Bank of Albania. Other (research, human resources, communication and transparency, integration process) In addition to fulfilment of legal duties, the Bank of Albania is committed to attaining other objectives that help in completing a modern central bank’s role in economy. Bank of Albania intensified its research and academic activities in international arena during 2012. Worth of note is the 10th International Conference on “Monetary Policy: From the past to the present”, which was coordinated with other activities in the framework of the 100th anniversary of Albania’s Independence. Also, through the Institute of Economic Studies, we have promoted the broad interest of Albanian and foreign researchers, and have organised two regional workshops. Since some years ago, the Bank of Albania has put on focus of its development plan, the improvement of bridges of communication with the public and enhancement of transparency. During 2012, we continued to complete the published information and diversify it according to target audience. We built up contacts with the media and intensified our efforts in financial education, aiming to increase financial literacy and clearly transmit the Bank of Albania’s messages. The Bank of Albania was an active participant in fulfilment of obligations arising from the SAA, Central European Free Trade Agreement, and other national commitments. BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  International authorities have assessed the Bank of Albania’s work progress as positive.