On the 6th of May 2008 it was held a meeting between the Albanian Electricity Regulator and Mr. Atsushi Iimi, representative of the World Bank mission.

The goal of the meeting was to inform the WB on the situation of the electricity sector and the methodology for calculation of tariff and prices of electricity for 2008.

From the experts of ERE was held a detailed presentation of the electro energetic situation in the country and the methodologies for setting the tariff and prices of electricity for 2008 based on the data presented in the KESH application on August of 2007.

Mr. Iimi expressed the concern to protect the agriculture farmers from the high unjustified prices of electricity, which can have a negative impact in their activity effectiveness by discouraging the investment initiative in this area. He expressed the interest of the

Mission he represented so that the WB projects on infrastructure and agriculture were successful; there must be justified electricity prices in compliance with the respective methodologies to cover the service costs and cost of generation and import, with a interruptible supply with electricity. The load shedding of electricity obstacle the investments and as a result they have a negative impact in the economical growth of the country.

ERE explained that with the tariff and prices approved for 2008 are covered all the forecasted costs for KESH for a supply without load shedding in the country. By assessing the hydrological situation very favorable in the country ERE does not see any argument to justify a new increase of prices in 2008.

In addition to this, ERE experts emphasized that they share the same opinion with the WB on the negative impact of the unjustified prices and load shedding for the development of the businesses and the whole economy. In this aspect in 2006 it was reached a significant decrease of electricity prices with 32% for non household customers, following the philosophy to encourage investments in the production and business area. ERE assured that this philosophy will be respected as an important feature in its decision making for tariff and prices.

To Mr. Iimi were given detailed explanations of the methodologies for calculation of tariff and prices of electricity which he considered very useful for the evaluations and studies carried by the WB in the infrastructure and agriculture projects.