
The data of the Balkan Barometer for 2023, published by the "Council for Regional Cooperation", show that Western Balkan businesses finance their operations mainly from internal funds. "Scan Intel" has processed the data of capital sources of enterprises in our country, to see what were the sources that businesses mainly use for financing. According to the figures, 97% of entrepreneurs in Albania stated that they used internal funds for financing. Compared to the countries of the region, Albania has the highest rate of self-financing. Serbia follows the second with the highest percentage of surveyed business owners (80%), who have stated that they have financed their businesses with internal funds during 2023. Kosovo also registers 61% of respondents who have stated that they financed the businesses from their own funds. The lowest percentage of this indicator is recorded by Montenegro, with 30%. The data for Albania in the 2023 edition show a contraction of other sources of financing, while this year the percentage of those who said they were financed with internal sources has increased.
The data of the barometer in terms of accessibility to financing show that 36% of surveyed businesses received loans from commercial banks for 2023. Kosovo has the highest percentage at the regional level of this indicator, where 65% stated that they received loans from commercial banks. On the other hand, there are 7% of the surveyed Albanian entrepreneurs who stated that they received loans from informal sources. At the regional level, this indicator is higher in Kosovo, where there are about 13% of the respondents who stated that they received debt from informal sources.
An interesting figure is also the percentage of respondents who received loans from foreign banks. Albania has 5% of respondents who have received loans from foreign banks, while the highest percentage is the respondents in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with 8% of businesses that have received loans from foreign banks.
Albania and Kosovo are the two countries with the lowest percentage of owners who said they used credit cards as a source to finance their business during the last 12 months.