Moldovan state budget draft law for 2016 sees 40-per-cent increase in agricultural subsidies

Chisinau, 10 February /MOLDPRES/- Agriculture and Food Industry Minister Eduard Grama during a meeting of the Economic Press Club today, said the draft law on the state budget for 2016 provided for an increase of up to 40 per cent, 1 billion lei, in agricultural subsidies.

“An amount of 15 million lei from the entire billion will be allotted to the National Vine and Wine Office. Another 45 million lei will be used to pay the state's debt to apple producers, who were hurt by the Russian embargo, imposed in mid 2014 and were forced to sell their products at a lower price. Almost 400-430 million lei will be used to pay the subsidies for 2015 and the remaining 500 million lei will serve as subsidies for 2016,” Grama noted.

The agriculture subsidies fund enclosed 610 million lei in 2015. Thus, 240 million lei were used to pay the debt for 2014 and other 45 million lei were paid as compensations.

The agriculture minister added that a draft law on subsidies had been carried out, ought to be submitted to the parliament, and hopefully adopted during its spring-winter session. “The law provides for subsiding principles, excluding thus problems like debts, usually caused by the fact that the subsiding regulation gets to be approved at the middle of the year,” Grama said.

(Reporter V. Bercu, Editor L. Alcaza)