Albanian exports increased by 10.6% in July, but the growth is mainly supported by minerals, energy, metals and construction materials.

Albanian exports rose in July 2026, but which exports Increased and why?

However, in order to understand whether this represents a genuine improvement in the export economy, it is not enough to look solely at the 10.6% figure. The statistical data require us to ask: which exports increased, why did they increase, and what do these developments tell us about the structure of the Albanian economy?

This is precisely where the reading of the data becomes more structural.

According to INSTAT, the growth recorded in July was not broadly distributed across the entire export economy. On the contrary, it was driven mainly by two groups: “Construction Materials and Metals”, which made the largest contribution to growth at +8.9 percentage points, and “Minerals, Fuels and Electricity”, contributing +5.3 percentage points. A positive, though much more limited, contribution came from “Machinery, Equipment and Spare Parts”, at +0.9 percentage points.

On the other side of the balance, one of the traditionally most important sectors of Albanian exports, textiles and footwear, made a negative contribution of -4.3 percentage points. Chemical and plastic products also had a negative impact, contributing -0.6 percentage points. This means that the overall 10.6% increase was driven primarily by the performance of sectors linked to minerals, energy, metals and construction materials, while part of the manufacturing industry remains under pressure.

This is the fundamental difference between an increase in the value of exports and an improvement in the structure of exports. Albania may export more in a given month without necessarily having improved its long-term capacity to produce, compete and penetrate new markets with products of higher added value.

July’s positive performance must also be viewed in relation to 2025

July’s 10.6% increase is undoubtedly real, but it should also be assessed against the comparison base. In July 2025, exports had declined by 6.9% compared with a year earlier. In fact, 2025 closed with an annual decline in exports of 6.1%, while the total value of exports fell to approximately ALL 346 billion.

The year 2026 has brought a gradual turnaround.

After a still-negative January, with a decline of 4.5%, exports moved into positive territory in February, March and May, growing at relatively moderate rates. In April, however, they increased by 16.9%, followed by growth of 13.6% in June and 10.6% in July.

Therefore, the picture emerging from the first seven months is not one of an immediate and uniform recovery across all export sectors. Rather, it points to a recovery driven by a number of specific sectors, capable of significantly changing the overall export performance from one month to another.

July itself illustrates this point. Although exports were 10.6% higher than a year earlier, they were 5% lower than in June 2026. This monthly fluctuation also demonstrates the sensitivity of the export structure to a limited number of dominant categories and to their specific underlying factors.

What is driving the growth?

The substantial weight of minerals, energy, metals and construction materials indicates that Albanian exports continue to depend heavily on cyclical sectors and on factors that are not entirely under the control of the Albanian economy.

In the case of minerals and fuels, performance is influenced by a combination of production levels, international market prices and external demand. Electricity exports, on the other hand, remain closely linked to hydrological conditions and domestic generation capacity. A favourable year for energy production can significantly improve export performance, while the opposite situation can rapidly reverse these results.

Construction materials and metals also have a strongly cyclical nature. Their performance is linked to demand from the construction sector, infrastructure projects and economic developments in the markets to which Albania exports. In this sense, strong growth in these sectors is positive news for producers and for the trade balance, but it should not automatically be confused with a transformation of the economy towards more sophisticated, technology-intensive and higher-value-added products.

The data suggest that the current growth is mainly linked to the continuation of the cycle in minerals, energy and construction materials. These sectors can generate rapid increases in the value of exports, but they generally do not have the same structural impact on employment, innovation and productivity growth that would be expected from sustained expansion in manufacturing industries and exports with greater technological intensity.

The most concerning signal remains the garment and footwear industry

If the growth of minerals and construction materials explains the positive side of July’s performance, the decline in textiles and footwear highlights the structural weakness that continues to affect Albanian exports.

In July 2026, this group made a negative contribution of 4.3 percentage points to the change in exports. This is not merely a statistical category that has declined. It is a sector that has historically played a particularly important role in employment and in linking the Albanian economy to European production value chains.

Its weakening has several explanations. One of the factors placing pressure on competitiveness is the exchange rate. Producers whose revenues are mainly earned in euros, while a substantial part of their costs is incurred in Albanian lek, face shrinking profit margins when the euro depreciates against the lek. This particularly affects the contract manufacturing sector, where margins are traditionally limited and competition from other lower-cost countries is intense.

However, the problem is not limited to the exchange rate. The decline of the garment and footwear industry also raises a deeper question that requires reflection: how quickly is Albanian industry managing to move from a low-cost production model towards products incorporating design, branding, technology and higher value created within the country?

As long as this transformation does not progress at the required pace, the export economy will remain exposed, on the one hand, to competition from countries with lower labour costs and, on the other, to pressure from rising costs and exchange-rate movements.

The geography of markets also reveals the limits of this growth

In July, the largest increase in exports by trading partner was recorded with Greece, at 19%, while exports to Germany increased by 2.5%. Meanwhile, exports to Italy declined by 2% and those to Kosovo fell by 2.4%.

The European Union continues to remain the main destination for Albanian exports: 68.4% of total exports in July 2026 went to EU countries. This represents an advantage because of geographical proximity and trade integration, but at the same time it also highlights the high concentration of exports in traditional markets.

The growth in exports to Greece is positive, but it should be interpreted together with the structure of the products driving exports. When the momentum comes primarily from construction materials, metals, minerals or energy, this reflects more an expansion of demand for existing product categories than a new penetration of the Albanian economy into more distant markets or more sophisticated segments of global value chains.

From this perspective, more sustainable growth would require not only selling larger volumes of existing products in traditional markets, but also expanding the product range, increasing technological content and penetrating new markets.

So, is this healthy growth?

In fact, not entirely. It is positive and significant growth in value terms, but its structural quality remains limited.

If export growth were an indicator of a deeper economic transformation, one would expect a more balanced contribution from different sectors. We would see stabilisation or growth in the garment and footwear industry, an expansion of processed products, stronger exports of higher-value-added food products, growth in more sophisticated industrial production and a greater role for products with higher technological content.

At present, however, the export picture is different. Two major groups—construction materials and metals, together with minerals, fuels and electricity—generated the overwhelming share of the positive momentum in July. At the same time, textiles and footwear pulled the overall result downward.

Therefore, exports can increase without the export base necessarily becoming stronger.

An economy that relies heavily on raw materials and cyclical products can record high growth rates during favourable periods, but it is also more exposed to changes in prices, regional demand, climatic conditions and fluctuations in production. A more diversified structure, by contrast, even when growing at more moderate rates, generally provides greater sustainability for employment, productivity and long-term income.

What should the public understand beyond the 10.6% figure?

The message conveyed by the July data is not that export growth should be minimised. On the contrary, it should be recognised as a positive development, particularly after the weakness recorded in 2025.

Our economy is experiencing an export recovery, but there is still insufficient evidence to conclude that a sustainable transformation of the export model has begun.

The real challenge for economic policy is not simply to generate another month of double-digit growth. It is to ensure that future growth does not depend disproportionately on raw-material prices, energy production or the construction cycle in regional markets.

Higher-quality export growth would be growth in which value, diversification, productivity and employment increase simultaneously. Until then, July’s 10.6% figure is positive news, but it is not yet evidence that the Albanian economy has resolved its structural competitiveness problem.

This is the distinction that must be made between export growth and strengthening export capacity. The former can result from a favourable cycle; the latter requires economic transformation, investment, technology, productivity and policies that help Albanian sectors compete sustainably in international markets.

July’s indicators point to a recovery, but their structure shows that the transformation has not yet arrived.

Source: Official INSTAT data, “Foreign Trade in Goods, July 2026”, published on 17 August 2026.