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Albania
Engineering
During Albania's long effort to achieve autarky, economic planners
focused the country's engineering industry on producing tools,
equipment, and spare parts for machinery that would substitute
for imports. However, product standards suffered because of the
poor quality of domestically produced materials, especially steel,
and because of Albania's complete isolation from world technological
advances. The continuing operation of machinery long obsolete
in the outside world, including a textile mill in Tiranë reminiscent
of sweatshops in the turn-of-the-century United States, was a
testament to the ingenuity of the workers in the engineering branch
who fabricated spare parts. In addition to spare parts, several
plants produced finished products, including the Enver Hoxha Auto
and Tractor Plant in Tiranë, which produced 75-horsepower tractors,
refrigerator compressors, and other products; the Drini Engineering
Works in Shkodër, which turned out heavy machinery; the Durrës
shipyards and agricultural machinery works; a precision-tool factory
in Korçë; and a textile equipment works in Tiranë.
Data as of April 1992
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