Poverty, Albania with the highest food costs in Europe

A person living in Albania needs to spend 4.4 USD per day (according to the purchasing power index) on food alone to meet the needs of a normal diet, the World Food Organization (FAO) estimates.

This cost is valid for 2021 and is the highest in Europe and the Region. Even in the global ranking of 163 countries, Albania ranks 28th for the high costs of the daily food diet.

The food cost index was generated from the FAO database and in Albania it turns out to be high, because in our country, wages are among the lowest in Europe and almost 30% lower than the Region and from other, the prices are high and even for some products higher than in the EU countries.

The FAO index ranks Jamaica as the country with the highest cost of living at US$7 per capita per person, followed by Grenada and Suriname at US$6.1 each.

On the other hand, the UK has the lowest food costs per person per day according to purchasing power at just US$2 per day, followed by Ireland at US$2.2.

In general, poor and developing countries have high daily food costs.

In the Region, after Albania, Serbia has the highest daily food costs with USD 4.3 per person per day, followed by Bosnia with USD 4.1 per day, Montenegro with USD 3.7 per day and North Macedonia with USD 3.6 per day. day.

In 2022, the "Food and non-alcoholic beverages" group took 39.7% of the family budget, with a decrease of 1.6 percentage points compared to the previous year, the highest in Europe.

The average of the European Union for this indicator is 13%, while in other countries of the region it is lower than in Albania, according to Eurostat.

Albanian families are so poor that they are forced to spend most of their income on food.

According to other Eurostat data, nominal expenditure on food (measured according to the purchasing power standard) in Albania was as much as 31% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), or what the economy produces in a year, in 2022. This figure is the highest in Europe and much more than the average of 6.3% of the GDP of the European Union.

After Albania, in second place is Montenegro, with 22.7% of GDP, followed by Bosnia and Herzegovina (20.7%).

North Macedonia (20.6) and the lowest is in Serbia, with 14.5% of GDP (data for Kosovo are missing).

Food prices in Albania are 83.7% of the European Union average, the third most expensive in the region, after Serbia (89.7%) and Montenegro (85.8%). The cheapest in the region are the prices in North Macedonia, with 68.2% of the EU average.

For bread and cereals, 4.3% of GDP is spent in Albania, from 1.1%, which is the European average. Second behind us is Montenegro with 3.4% of GDP.

For milk, cheese and eggs, spending is again a record at 5.1% of GDP, down from just 1% which is the EU average. Albanian families buy these products 11.8% more expensive than the European average, among the most expensive in Europe, although we are a country where agriculture brings about 20% of the economy./ Monitor