Moldovan PM says transparency to be key word in unlocking foreign financing

Chisinau, 8 November /MOLDPRES/ - Transparency will be the key word in the unlocking of the foreign financing. Prime Minister Pavel Filip made statements to this effect, after the Board of Directors of the International Monetary Fund on 7 November had approved a three-year agreement with Moldova.  

At a news briefing, held jointly with Parliament Speaker Andrian Candu, the PM noted that the most important news was that the foreign financing had been unlocked. “Many people this year tried to tell the citizens that this would not be possible, there were just attacks and speculations. They doubted that we will manage to implement the roadmap and the Agreement with IMF. Nevertheless, we see that the roadmap has been fulfilled long ago, and now we have the Agreement with IMF as well. The programme’s main goal is to settle, with more effort, at the first stage, the urgent problems dealing with the quality of the governance and stability of the banking sector. This is our firm commitment to significantly improve the economic governance,” Filip said.   

The prime minister also said that Moldova had got access to an overall sum of 129.4 million special drawing rights (about 178.7 million dollars or 75 per cent of Moldova’s quota at IMF). “The sum of 35.9 million dollars will be provided to Moldova immediately after the agreement’s approval. The sum left will be disbursed in five installments, following the programme’s assessment. The 2017 year will not be the one during which “milk and honey is going to flow”; yet, maybe it will be a historical one for the country’s development, a year in which we will carry out significant reforms,” Pavel Filip said.    

For his part, Parliament Speaker Andrian Candu said IMF’s decision represented a good signal for the foreign partners and a strong message for foreign investors. “An evil chapter in Moldova’s history has ended with this ruling. This is a message of change of the country’s image. Moldova enjoys reliability. I find out that the image crisis, we have been facing, is over; we may switch to the stage of the country’s development now,” Candu added.    

In the end, the two officials specified that the programme’s text would be made public on the days to come.

Moldova has not have an agreement with the International Monetary Fund since   the autumn of 2013.  

(Reporter A. Plitoc, editor A. Raileanu)