Lastly, judging from the performance of macroeconomic factors, economic growth was also sustained by a stimulating financial environment, more favourable performance of our trading partners, improved balance sheets, and a more optimistic view of enterprises and households on the outlook. All the above reasons fuel the optimism on the perspective of economic growth in the next year and onward. Albania has reached, among others, an important milestone on its path to development and integration: the expected opening of accession negotiations with the European Union. These negotiations should surely be viewed as an important development anchor and an additional guarantee for both domestic and foreign investors. The year just ending confirmed the stability of the Albanian banking sector. It may be considered as a special year in view of important structural changes in the system, which are expected to be finalised in the next year. Banking activity continued to expand, and the banking sector continued to be well capitalised, liquid and profitable. The NPL ratio continued to improve, hitting a new record low for the last eight years, standing at 12.89%, in September. Meanwhile, deposit growth was channelled mostly into investments in securities and less into lending. Certainly, the appreciation of the exchange rate and the lost loans write off provided a statistical effect on the indicators of credit performance. Also, credit in the national currency continued to prevail over the foreign currency credit. Nonetheless, the overall level of credit to the economy is still far from its potential and the opportunities for expanding lending abound.

Nor are they likely to choose a robot to look after their young children or elderly parents (tempting as that can sometimes sound). When it comes to forecasting the economy, I can quite believe a thinking machine might over time displace me. But it is less likely an “Andy Robot” will be giving this lecture to the TUC even a decade from now. Even if this diagnosis is right, it nonetheless may suggest a fundamental reorientation in the nature of work could be underway. We may already be seeing early signs of that in the move towards part-time working, temporary contracts and, in particular, self-employment. Some have speculated that these seismic shifts could result in the emergence of a “new artisan” class : micro-businesses offering individually-tailored products and services, personalised to the needs of customers, from healthcare and social care, to leisure products and luxuries. This really will be Back to the Future. Yet the smarter machines become, the greater the likelihood that the space remaining for uniquely-human skills could shrink further. Machines are already undertaking tasks which were unthinkable – if not unimaginable – a decade ago. The driverless car was science fiction no more than a decade ago. Today, it is scientific fact. Algorithms are rapidly learning not just to process and problem-solve, but to perceive and even emote (Pratt (2015)). As digital replaced analogue, perhaps artificial intelligence will one day surpass the brain’s cognitive capacity, a tipping point referred to as the “singularity” (Stanislaw (1958))).