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The First Regional Conference "Private Pensions in Focus", organized by the Association of Life Insurers, Pensions and Investment Funds, is taking place in Tirana.
During the welcoming speech, the President of the Association, Mr. Elvis Ponari, said that the primary goal is to get to know the Private Pension system, seeing the crisis that the state pension scheme is facing.
According to Mr. Ponari, Albania is suffering a pension crisis today, also due to high emigration and low birth rate, which is causing the number of contributors and beneficiaries to equalize.
According to him, Europe does not have higher pensions, but unlike Albania, it has three pension systems, divided into 3 columns, which enables higher incomes at retirement age.
He asked for the implementation of Column II as soon as possible as the best solution for the moment Albania is going through.
" The Second Column is the pension insurance from employment with capital financing where each insured person in the compulsory state insurance scheme (First Column) pays a part of the individual contributions to a private pension fund. In this way, by fulfilling the conditions for pension benefit, the income of insured persons consists of two sources: a pension from the compulsory state insurance scheme and a pension from the capital-funded employment pension insurance scheme .
After Mr. Ponari, the President's Advisor Mr. Arjan Kadareja, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Economy Mr. Eduart Shalsi, the member of the Supervisory Board of the AMF Mr. Deniz Deralla and the Deputy Minister of Economy and Finance Mr. Endrit Yzeiraj spoke.
Meanwhile, during his speech, the General Director of ISSH, Mr. Hodo, said, among other things:
" We are not competitors but complement each other in order to make a worthy contribution to the citizens. What we cannot do, the private scheme makes up for, and the opposite by carrying out a satisfactory social protection. Does Albania have the opportunity today and should create the second column? I hope that this conference will do this, lay out how it can be done, when it can be done because this is a reform process that requires a broad discussion, it requires the commitment of everyone so that the product is comprehensive, acceptable to all. "
Present at the conference, the Austrian ambassador in Tirana, Christian Steiner, thanked the Association and Mr. Ponari for the organization, stating that the issue of pensions is a current topic for Albania, seeing the emigrant movements.
The conference then continued with other panelists, local and foreign, who discussed investor protection, sustainability and pension reform. While the guests from the Region and Europe gave their examples of how private pension schemes have been implemented in these countries.
Today, private pensions are a social scheme that has been operating in Albania for 17 years and are represented by the most vocal and successful companies in the country, with one goal: an additional pension for every citizen when they stop working.
Among other things, money invested in pension funds is not lost. They are inherited by descendants, unlike the state pension which ceases to exist when the pensioner dies.
Meanwhile, with the imminent approval of the draft law "On Private Pensions" by the Parliament, it is expected to pave the way for the increase of assets in private funds, will increase the range of products and the increase of interest for employers and employees.
Today, 4 private pension funds operate in our country, which count over 37 thousand members and manage a total of assets of nearly 53 million euros.
In short, this scheme has been embraced by less than 3% of the country's workforce. Therefore, more work should be done on informing and educating citizens.
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