INFLUENCE OF CULTURAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL VICINITY IN ATTRACTING THE FDI IN BALKAN REGION. ALBANIA AS A CASE STUDY

This study tried to identify the impact of qualitative parameters such as language, geographic and cultural vicinity between Albania and its neighbor countries for attracting foreign investments. In the beginning, there is a general overview of FDI in Balkan Region and then the study follows with a general overview of FDI in Albania. In this aspect, resources of secondary data were used. Information from these resources shows that foreign investors in Albania originate mostly from EU countries. The study is completed with collecting primary data which consisted on the personal interviews to 122 foreign businesses having their activity in Albania out of a total of 1347 businesses. Two hypotheses were identified related with the cultural and geographical vicinity between the host country and origin country of foreign investors and their reasons of investing in Albania. The statistical analysis of the questionnaires was made through SPSS17 program, which calculates the frequency of answers, creation of cross tables and verifies the hypotheses through x2test.