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.