International Monetary Fund mission starts five-day visit to Chisinau

Chisinau, 23 May /MOLDPRES A team of experts of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), led by Ivanna Vladkova-Hollar, has come on a visit to Chisinau, to continue the dialogue with the Moldovan authorities on economic and financial policies.

The mission is set to continue “the dialogue on the economic policies and to advance in discussing the reforms proposed by the government and the National Bank of Moldova, as important elements of a programme backed by IMF”, IMF’s Resident Representative in Moldova Armine Khachatryan said.

The official noted that “the mission will not have mandate to conclude an agreement on a new programme”.

This is the second IMF mission of 2016. A team of the Fund's experts was on a working visit to Chisinau on 23-29 February 2016. “We had open and constructive talks, focused on analysis of recent economic developments and approach of policies promoted by the authorities to maintain the macroeconomic stability and improve the governance in the financial sector. Nevertheless, the perspectives remain not at all simple; to cope with them, the economy will have to be managed competently”,  Ivanna Vladkova-Hollar said.

The IMF team of experts proposed the authorities a string of recommendations, the implementation of which would lead to signing a new agreement. Prime Minister Pavel Filip has recently said he hoped that a IMF Mission should visit Chisinau in next June at the latest, as a first step to unblocking foreign financial assistance. The government has fully carried out the list of short-term goals agreed upon with foreign partners, in record time, the prime minister said in his report on 100 days in office.

In an informative note, annexed to the draft budget law for 2016, the Finance Ministry points out that the draft “is based on conclusion of a cooperation programme with IMF, with a major importance for ensuring budget sustainability both for short and medium term. The lack of such a programme could jeopardize the getting of the foreign budgetary support, amounting to about 4,679.5 million lei”,of which 2.59 billion lei – non-refundable finance.

(Reporter V. Bercu, editor A. Raileanu)