Albania's struggle with privatisation

By Richard Hollingham BBC, Albania

Emotions are running high in Albania as it tries to get to grips with a free market after decades of communism, conflict, disorder, and corruption.

Albania is one of the poorest nations in Europe

Albania's Education and Science Minister, Luan Memushi, was outlining his efforts to reform the production of school textbooks so the company that wins the contract offers the best value for money.

I only asked if he was being successful. But as he told me about the corruption, mafia influence and pressure he was under, tears welled up in his eyes.

That someone can get this passionate about producing school textbooks shows the effort it can take to achieve even the simplest reforms.

But there is no stopping the advance of the free market.

The main square in Tirana is still dominated by a mosaic showing workers marching to the new tomorrow, led by a woman in traditional costume, a woman with a rifle.

The modern equivalent is the enormous Vodafone sign - displayed on a nearby hilltop - or the numerous billboard adverts extolling Albanians to drink more cola or smoke more cigarettes, if that is possible.

Industrial past

We drove south out of Tirana across the mountains towards Elbasan, home to what was the most polluting industrial complex in Europe.

The government worked hard to reduce emissions in the area

You can tell you have arrived at the place which once produced the "steel of the party" by the sickly yellow smoke that hangs over the valley.

Through the haze, it is a city of factories, chimneys and warehouses, crisscrossed by railway tracks and a grid of roads.

It is only when you get closer - past some more mosaics with gun-wielding women - that it becomes apparent that this symbol of Albania's might is all but abandoned.

You drive under cables of rusty buckets that brought minerals from the surrounding hills, and through a concrete gateway that once might have looked triumphant but now looks dangerously unsafe.

Despite its dilapidated condition, the Elbasan complex still has a director.

Kozma Biba has been working at the plant for 30 years. In the past he would toil through the night to meet his production targets.

Now he gets to show people around in the hope they might purchase a plot of land or the remains of a factory.

Chinese connection

When Kozma first started at Elbasan in the mid-1970s, some 12,000 people worked alongside him producing more than 50 types of metal in 12 factories connected by 30 miles of railway.

Elbasan is now a shadow of its former self

It still boasts one of Europe's highest chimneys - but the factory beneath is gutted - its bare girders surrounded by rubble and a herd of goats.

Elbasan was built with Chinese money, to Chinese designs.

Albania's dictator, Enver Hoxha, was a fan of the more extreme forms of communism, first embracing Soviet Stalinism until Khrushchev started introducing reforms, and then Maoism, until China began liberalising its economy.

Eventually Hoxha gave up in disgust, leaving Albania almost completely isolated from the rest of the world.

The bizarre legacy is that much of the scientific and technological infrastructure of this European country is annotated with Chinese symbols.

I had already seen, for example, an industrial-looking computer in the Informatics Institute in Tirana whose operators had to program in Chinese.

Kozma looks terribly sad as he surveys the wasteland around him

There were also apparently problems at Elbasan once the advisers from China left, leaving instruction books that no-one could read.

It is easy to dismiss Elbasan as an ill-conceived folly, but Kozma still has a real sense of pride about the place.

His voice cracks as he talks of how alive the factory was, the challenges involved in perfecting the processes, the effort that went into building the steel of the party.

He looks terribly sad as he surveys the wasteland around him and thinks of his thousands of former comrades struggling to find employment.

But Kozma has not been unsuccessful in his efforts to rebuild the place.

Element of danger

We drove towards the source of the yellow smoke. Next to a massive pile of scrap metal was a building some six storeys high and about the length of three football stadiums.

These steel smelters are operated by a private company, transforming Albania's plentiful scrap metal into girders for construction.

For Albania, the days of grand political and economic gestures are long gone

Directly above my head a crane was lowering red-hot steel bars into a glowing stack a few centimetres away.

In the distance, twisted metal was being dropped into a giant cauldron.

The heat, combined with the noise and a certain, possibly real element of danger, could only leave one in awe. There was a beauty and intensity about the process.

I was beginning to understand why Kozma missed it so much.

For Albania, the days of grand political and economic gestures are long gone. No-one is pretending Albania can take on the world.

But privatisation is fraught with pitfalls, from the relaxed attitude to health and safety at Elbasan to corruption in the textbook industry.

Although as long as steel workers can get emotional over molten metal, and ministers over tendering processes, the country would seem to have a promising future.

From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Thursday, 19 May, 2005, at 1100 BST on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times.