Albania's gross domestic product expanded 3.55 percent in the third quarter over the same period in 2016, thanks to rising trade, transport and tourism, the Statistics Institute said on Friday. GDP growth for the first nine months of 2017 stands at 3.87 percent, just above the target of 3.7 percent annual growth projected by the International Monetary Fund and slightly lower than the revised target of 4 percent by the government.

GDP was up 0.38 percent from the second quarter. The biggest driver of growth was trade, transport and tourism, contributing 0.90 percentage points to growth in the second quarter. Education and health added 0.89 percentage points, followed by construction with 0.68 percentage points.

Copyright Reuters, 2018