The Minister of Agriculture, Rural Development and Water Management, Edmond Panariti, held a working meeting on Thursday with the German Minister of Agriculture, Christian Schmidt, who was accompanied by the German Ambassador to Albania, Susanne Szhütz, chief of German Bundestag Kordula Kovac and accompanying delegation.

Minister Panariti made a brief overview of the development of agriculture in Albania, while he also informed his counterpart on the Albanian products exported to Germany.

Further eased exporting procedures for vegetables from Albania to Germany was one of the requirements of the Minister Panariti addressed to his counterpart Schmidt while the most important request was the assistance that Germany can provide through some laboratory tests in cases when there are suspicions on Albanian products.

“One of the potential benefits for agricultural production sector would be the possibility to somehow mitigate the competition made to this sector here by all countries that regularly subsidize this sector. Also, exchange of intern students of agriculture between the two countries would be very valuable to our agriculture sector,” said Minister Panariti.

He further said that Albanian exports to Germany grew by 2 percent in the first nine months of 2016 compared to the same period of last year.

“Exports of medicinal plants increased by 89%, export of wine increased by 49% while Germany is the main buyer of Albanian Medicinal and Aromatic Plants,” Minister Panariti said.

On his part, the German Federal Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Christian Schmidt, thanking Mr. Panariti for a detailed explanation and description of the needs of Albanian agriculture, said that both sides should work to concretize cooperation in this field.

In relation to the standards of controls to be decided, this would be the way to open doors of Albanian products to EU markets. Another way of cooperation is exchange of experiences and talk about what we can do at expert levels, German Minister said.

“We are ready to support projects of Albania to absorb funds from the European Union and it would be appropriate that the Federal Institute for Agriculture to coordinate the work and bring its representatives to Albania and start talks with your experts,” Minister Schmidt further said.