According to experts, the main cause of the fall of the euro this year is the low trade volumes. Also, protests have had an impact on low turnover, as it has paralyzed consumption by key market players.
Historically the euro appears to be weak against the lek as the end year holiday season aproaches. While this year was weak for the euro, the depreciation this year has been more pronounced.Unlike the domestic market where the euro is weak, international coins have gained points against the dollar. According to the rate published by the Financial Times, one euro is exchanged at $ 1.13, from 1.12 that was exchanged a month earlier. This is also reflected in the depreciation of the dollar on the domestic market, which has lost half point against lek today. One dollar was exchanged today at the official rate of the Bank of Albania with 108.66 lek.
Is money laundering affecting?!
Since mid-2016, the euro has entered a steadily declining trajectory, losing 15 leks, since May 2016, to currently reach at 12 lek. The Current Account Deficit did not show any significant improvement over that period, which would officially justify the strengthening of the domestic currency. For example, in the third quarter of this year, the current account deficit was minus 146 million euros, from minus 143 million euros of the same period of the previous year, while the euro stabilized close to 126 lek following many Bank interventions of Albania in June-August and began to decline since the Bank left free the course. Even in the first quarter the current deficit was deteriorating and only in the second was improving.
In a recent MONEYVAL report, the anti-money laundering mechanism of the Council of Europe noted the link between corruption and criminal money laundering organizations. The report found that "The gambling sector (through the threat of criminal infiltration into ownership and activity) and the real estate sector are seen to have a high risk of money laundering."
The report underlined that while in banks the control was higher, Moneyval considered at high-risk the money-exhange sectors.