cement, chemicals, mining, basic metals, hydropower

Agriculture: accounts for 55% of GDP; arable land per capita among
lowest in Europe; 80% of arable land now in private hands; 60% of the
work force engaged in farming; produces wide range of temperate-zone
crops and livestock

Illicit drugs: transshipment point for Southwest Asian heroin
transiting the Balkan route and cocaine from South America destined
for Western Europe; limited opium production

Economic aid:
recipient: $303 million (1993)

Currency: 1 lek (L) = 100 qintars

Exchange rates: leke (L) per US$1 - 100 (January 1995), 99 (January
1994), 97 (January 1993), 50 (January 1992), 25 (September 1991)

Fiscal year: calendar year

@Albania:Transportation

Railroads:
total: 543 km line connecting Podgorica (Serbia and Montenegro) and
Shkoder completed August 1986
standard gauge: 509 km 1.435-m gauge
narrow gauge: 34 km 0.950-m gauge (1990)

Highways:
total: 18,450 km
paved: 17,450 km
unpaved: earth 1,000 km (1991)

Inland waterways: 43 km plus Albanian sections of Lake Scutari, Lake
Ohrid, and Lake Prespa (1990)

Pipelines: crude oil 145 km; petroleum products 55 km; natural gas 64
km (1991)

Ports: Durres, Sarande, Shergjin, Vlore

Merchant marine:
total: 11 cargo ships (1,000 GRT or over) totaling 52,967 GRT/76,887
DWT

Airports:
total: 11
with paved runways 2,438 to 3,047 m: 3
with paved runways 914 to 1,523 m: 2
with unpaved runways over 3,047 m: 2
with unpaved runways 2,438 to 3,047 m: 1
with unpaved runways 1,524 to 2,438 m: 1
with unpaved runways 914 to 1,523 m: 2

@Albania:Communications

Telephone system: about 55,000 telephones; about 15 telephones/1,000
persons
local: primitive; about 11,000 telephones in Tirane, the capital city
intercity: obsolete wire system; no longer provides a telephone for
every village; in 1992, following the fall of the communist
government, peasants cut the wire to about 1,000 villages and used it
to build fences
international: inadequate; carried through the Tirane exchange and
transmitted through Italy on 240 microwave radio relay circuits and
through Greece on 150 microwave radio relay circuits

Radio:
broadcast stations: AM 17, FM 1, shortwave 0
radios: 515,000 (1987 est.)

Television:
broadcast stations: 9
televisions: 255,000 (1987 est.)

@Albania:Defense Forces

Branches: Army, Navy, Air and Air Defense Forces, Interior