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gent sejko : increasing the formalization of the albanian economy address by mr gent sejko, governor of the bank of albania, at the joint press conference with the minister of finance and economy, tirana, 7 december 2017. * * * dear minister ahmetaj, dear media representatives, it is with great pleasure that i present this concrete initiative of the bank of albania ( boa ) in the framework of our efforts to promote the formalization of the economy. it is encouraging to see that a series of initiatives by other albanian authorities are taken for the same purpose, to enhance the law enforcement and the use of financial channels. experience has shown that complementary efforts of regulatory institutions lower the policies ’ implementation costs and increase their likelihood for success. informal activity imposes open and hidden costs for the albanian economy and the society. it damages the country ’ s public finances, increases the tax burden and distorts its effect on the economic agents, hampers competition and increases the costs of fair business activity, reduces business financing resources and curbs their normal development, and creates social problems that arise from lack or insufficient coverage of social and health insurance. from the boa ’ s point of view, as the monetary authority and as the supervisor and regulator of the banking sector, informal activity reduces the effectiveness of our stabilization policies and creates the premises for instability of one or more segments of the financial system. focusing on the latter issue, i would like to remind you that safeguarding and strengthening financial stability has been and remains a major objective of boa ’ s work. as we have stated in our previous communications, the deterioration of the loan portfolios ’ quality has been one of the biggest challenges we have been facing in recent years. this deterioration reflected the effect of many factors, but the high level of informality in the economy, undoubtedly, provided its contribution to this performance. more concretely, the lack of financial transparency, lack or problems with property titles and those encountered during the execution of collateral contributed to the increase of non - performing loans and were a barrier to our legal and regulatory measures, for their reduction. in addition to the negative impact of informality on the loan performance and quality, it has also negatively affected the borrowers. taking risks beyond the repayment capacities, not identified as a result of the lack of clarity regarding the financial statements, has also caused credit default, thus making / driving borrowers face with unpredictable situations. for these reasons, the bank of albania has commended