Moldovan deputy PM says signing IMF agreement among government’s priorities

Chisinau, 31 March /MOLDPRES/-Among its other priorities, the Moldovan government aims to sign an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and unblock funds from foreign partners, in order to implement reforms, continue structural reforms, simplify business procedures and enforce business support programs. A statement to this effect was made by Deputy Prime Minister, Economics Minister Octavian Calmic during a conference in the French Senate, in Paris on 30 March.

According to the Economics Ministry’s press service, Calmic emphasized that the financial-banking sector continued to be the most difficult of all challenges. However, after fulfilling all the conditions IMF had laid down in late 2015 for this sector, and namely, to liquidate the three banks, diagnose the rest of them and increase tariffs for utility services, as well as appoint a new leadership of the National Bank of Moldova (BNM), Moldova is going to enforce some measures to consolidate BNM’s independence and capacity to intervene on the banking market, though most of legislative actions to this effect had already been taken.

As for Moldova’s current social-political and economic situation, the deputy prime minister said the political situation had largely stabilized and the economic decline had stopped following the election of the new government. Authorities also succeeded to resume the implementation of Moldova-EU Association Agreement and Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA), enforcement of reforms and dialogue with Moldova’s development partners and international financial bodies. Thus, in only two months after the appointment of the new government in 2016, Moldova succeeded to solve the arrears of 2014-2015.

“We expect an improvement in the economic crisis in 2016. We believe Moldova’s budgetary deficit is commensurable with the EU ones. Moreover, we are implementing all the necessary measures to achieve economic stability. We want to continue with unblocking foreign funds, optimizing public spending and drawing direct investments. The working visit Moldova’s delegation is paying to Paris aims to increase French authorities’ confidence in the government’s actions and describe existent opportunities. It is noted that a string of French companies had a prompt response to these messages,” the economics minister noted.

Calmic also said Moldova was currently implementing and planning to enforce more investment projects accounting for more than 100 million euros.

(Reporter A. Mardare, Editor M. Jantovan)