Hi, I'm Jacamo Tjini, staff writer at Forbes.

And joining me today to talk about his unique journey from Refugee to Albania's first billionaire is Samir Mane,

founder and president of the Belfin Group.

Hello, Samir. Thanks for taking the time today, and how are you?

Hello, Pan, thank you. Good to see you.

Good to see you too.

So first off, I wanted to ask you, if you could tell us a little bit about your upbringing.

You know, I know you came of age in a tumultuous time in Albania in the 1980s and then, you know, decided to leave Albania in 1991.

So could you tell us a bit more about that? Well, I

born in the South City of Albania. I studied a gerudgeon, Tehrana University for four and

a half years. In 1991, I escaped the country and I went to Austria. So I started Austria at the University of Geology.

So I started for one year University of Vienna.

And after that in 1992, I started my own business.

End of 1992 and beginning of 1993.

So that is the short time that I started university in Vienna, but basically I escaped

the communist country in 1991.

And 1992 I started my business by selling consumer electronic on a very small scale,

like selling a radio recorder, a video recorder at the time, by sending 10 pieces, 20 pieces,

and then slowly slowly more and more in Albania, which at the time was very empty with this kind of product because television in

communist time was almost not allowed actually. So only one television, 100 family at that time

have been in Albania. So that is the reason why the market was completely empty and I used this opportunity to send in Albania,

radio record, the television, and then slowly, slowly I started with other countries.

...