Tirana Creditworthiness Enhancement Programme (CEP)

EBRD has launched the Tirana Creditworthiness Enhancement Programme (CEP) to provide the City of Tirana with technical assistance in the area of financialmanagement. The project aims to generate a sufficient budget surplus, have sufficientmoney to make debt repayments and service the loan (including interest), and stabilizeand maintain this situation for the loan repayment period. The Tirana Creditworthiness Enhancement Programme is in line with the fiscal decentralization framework ofAlbanian government while it is considered by the City of Tirana not only as a programof technical assistance in servicing the loan, but also as a program for strengthening thefinancial management capacity of the City of Tirana before entering into the internaland external financial markets.

The goal of the Tirana Creditworthiness Enhancement Program is to generate a sufficientbudget surplus, have sufficient money to make debt repayments and service the loan (including interest), and stabilize and maintain this situation for the loan repaymentperiod. The approach to reach the goal assumes that the strengthening of creditworthinesswill be achieved through improved financial management after introducing the bestinternational municipal finance management practices.

The main activities include:

1. Trainings and capacity building of the municipality staff for evaluating the financialsituation and the long-term prediction of incomes/expenditures.

2. The evaluation of the fiscal capacity of the municipality of Tirana for loan taking.

3. The automated projection of the financial evaluations.

In this regard, CEP is seen by the City of Tirana not only as a program of technical assistancein servicing the loan, but furthermore as a program of strengthening the financialmanagement capacity of the City of Tirana before entering into the internal and externalfinancial markets. The new instrument of financing the city’s capital investments using loanswill allow the city to accelerate its infrastructure investments and development. It will resultin significant increase of infrastructure service quality thus improving living standards ofcitizens.

Donor: The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development(BERZH)/Tirana Municpality