section_path: Domestic policy
section_name: Domestic policy
paragraph_text: Domestic policy
  
  Rama has adopted a neo-liberal economic policy. It reduces public spending (citation needed - where is the evidence that government spending has been reduced) and promotes public-private partnerships in most sectors (tourism, higher education, health, public works, culture). The International Monetary Fund (IMF), traditionally favorable to these policies, however, considered that the Albanian government was proceeding too quickly with privatisation and exposed the country to "significant fiscal risks".
  
  Economic growth rates approached 4 percent in 2017 and 2018, the unemployment rate fell from 17.5 percent in 2014 to 11.5 percent in 2020. According to him, the improvement in the economic situation can be explained by the political stability of the country: "We are a country without a Senate, without unions, without a radical left and without comedians who play politics" Nevertheless, salaries remain low and emigration has accelerated since 2014
  
  Drug trafficking has grown considerably, accounting for nearly a third of GDP in 2017. According to estimates by Italian customs, 753,000 cannabis plants were destroyed in 2016, compared to 46,000 in 2014. Such destruction would have affected only 10 percent of the cultivated area. The Minister of the Interior, Saimir Tahiri (in office from 2013 to 2017), has himself been blamed (and sentenced) for his involvement in this traffic.
  
  In 2018, Rama adopted a law, welcomed by the European Union, providing for competition between universities and their openness to the market. Increases in tuition fees have caused discontent among students.