Moldovan economics ministry to decrease number of permissive documents, licenses by at least 25 per cent

Chisinau, 25 March /MOLDPRES/- The Economics Ministry proposed reducing the number of permissive documents and licenses by at least 25 per cent. In this respect, a working group was set up, that will analyze and propose for abrogation internal orders and permissive documents without any legal reasoning. About 100 permissive documents are to be repealed in all.

Deputy Prime Minister, Economics Minister Octavian Calmic made statements to this effect at a informal meeting held with representatives of over 20 foreign companies from Moldova, members of the European Investors’ Association.

The Economics Ministry’s press service noted that the talks had been focused on the reforms agenda of the government in terms of improving the investment climate and supporting the business environment. Calmic said that, in the short term, the Economics Ministry was making efforts to improve the business climate, attract direct foreign investments and facilitate access to new sales markets.

Calmic pointed out, as a priority, decrease in pressure of control institutions over entrepreneurs by esteblishing moratorium on controls, exempting start-ups from controls for a three-year term, removing administrative barriers and setting up single offices in domestic trade and building permits. “As many as 416 permissive acts have been already analyzed and we ascertained the noncompliance of many of them with basic principles for regulating the entrepreneurial activity”, he said.

As for the attraction of foreign direct investments (FDI), Calmic informed that the Economics Ministry implemented the Strategy of Investments Attraction for Promoting Exports for 2016-2020, aimed at wooing a net flow of direct foreign investments worth about 380 million dollars, collecting fiscal revenues amounting to almost 232 million dollars at the budget, creating of at least 10,000 jobs, increasing in goods exports up to 3 million dollars, and exports of services – to 1.2 million dollars. The strategy also sees reducing the trade deficit of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 4 per cent, decreasing unemployment rate by 1.4 per cent and increasing FDI share in GDP to 3.9 per cent.

According to the strategy, the main sectors with potential for export and attraction of foreign direct investments will be the processing industries and services. Among them there are: textile industry, consulting services and IT.

For their part, the investors said that the government’s efforts to improve the business environment by reducing administrative burden were not felt in regions due to the actions by local public authorities. In this context, Octavian Calmic said that a measure would be capping of local fees or their cancellation.  

(Reporter A. Mardare, editor L. Alcaza)