Foreign investments, development programmes able to reindustrialize Moldova, experts say

Chisinau, 3 June /MOLDPRES/-The Institute for Development and Social Initiatives (IDIS) "Viitorul" launched the “Is it Moldova’s reindustrialization possible?” study, by expert Ion Tornea, on 2 June. According to Tornea, drawing foreign investments in the field and implementation of best practices and tools from the international experience within industrial policies and programmes, had been and continued to be the main revitalization factor of Moldova’s industry.

Tornea says the collapse of the Soviet Union caused the Moldovan industrial sector to enter a profound deindustrialization process, accompanied by a drastic decrease in the number of its employees and importance for the country’s economy. Though all of the East-European countries had coped with this phenomenon, its amplitude and length was much greater in Moldova, due to the loss of a large industrial capacity and lack of appropriate solutions and response policies. 

Thus, the number of employees in the industrial sector had shrunk from 456 thousand to 148 thousand between 1990 and 2015, while the total volume of Moldova’s industrial production decreased to 20 per cent of the level registered in 1989. The industry’s share in Moldova’s GDP accounted for only 15 per cent, against 60 per cent in 1989.

To this effect, Tornea recommends that authorities carry out and implement industrial development programmes; ensure the efficient implementation of investment and export promotion policies, as well as new institutional strategies of the  Investment and Export Promotion Organisation (MIEPO) and Organization for Small and Medium Enterprises Sector Development (ODIMM); consolidate capacities of authorities and support sectors to implement industrial policies and programmes; develop Free Economic Zones and Industrial Parks.

Tornea said Moldova’s clusters sector is underdeveloped, while the number of jobs and newly created businesses is insignificant. There are no concrete state policies that could boost up and encourage this process. The state‘s actions in this field are limited and only refer to the introduction of the “cluster” notion in legislative and regulation documents. Clusters are a group of related industries and important entities based on the competitiveness principle.

(Reporter V. Bercu, Editor A. Raileanu)