Durres (Albania) (AFP)

In Albania, little hands are busy packing the canned anchovies as quickly as possible, which will garnish tables in Italy or Spain. In times of coronavirus, exports to the two hardest hit European countries soared.

This sector of activity is one of the few to float in the economic slump caused by the draconian measures taken by Albania against a scourge which has killed more than 52,000 people on the planet.

On the coast of the Adriatic Sea, in the industrial port of Durres, the second Albanian city, about fifty women, blue charlotte on the head and mask covering the mouth, pack salted anchovies at an artisanal manufacturer of canned fish .

In a large, immaculate white room reminiscent of an operating theater, they wash the anchovies previously salted for four months, dry them, remove the central stop and raise the fillets which will be put under vacuum or in a jar.

Before the coronavirus, there were 130 but, due to the safety distance, their number has been reduced. However, they have to produce more and in a time restricted by the curfew.

Because the appetite for anchovies has increased by 30%. Before the epidemic, Nettuno exported more than 25,000 kg of canned food per month to Italy and Spain. Today, "demand has risen to 34,000 kilos per month," said AFP Orlando Salvatore, the Italian boss of this company which is among the dozen in the sector.

He explains this enthusiasm by the confinement of Italian and Spanish families who are deprived of a restaurant and who need anchovies, a highly appreciated dish, for cooking.

"People start making pizza at home, which increases sales a lot," he adds.

Orlando Salvatore is worried about his family who lives in Italy, near Palermo (Sicily, south), but will open another factory in Albania in May which will be able to produce twice as many canned foods.

Women workers are relieved to still have a job when many Albanians have lost their jobs due to the closure of more than 30,000 companies.

"We are happy that the anchovies produced here go to Europe, to Spain, to France," says Landa Tabaku, a worker in her forties. "Despite this difficult period, sales continue and we can have work every day."

They are paid 1.5 euros per kilo of packaged anchovies and Landa manages to make 20 per day, which allows her to earn triple the minimum wage.

But the fish they process were caught in 2019. This year, the campaign that begins in April will be disrupted by restrictions that hamper fishing like the rest of the economy.

According to Alban Zusi, the president of the Association of Food Industries, Albania exported in 2019 to the European Union about 2,000 tonnes of anchovies processed, in third place after Spain and Morocco.

© 2020 AFP