Moldovan speaker refers to meal vouchers’ benefits to Ungheni businessmen

Chisinau, 11 July /MOLDPRES/ – Parliament Speaker, Andrian Candu, presented the benefits of the meal voucher system to businessmen from the Ungheni Free Economic Zone (ZEL) today, during a working visit to Ungheni. The entrepreneurs welcomed the Speaker’s initiative, the parliament’s communication and public relations department has reported.

The draft law of meal vouchers was voted by Parliament at first reading, being a social policy tool used by companies to provide extra-salary benefits to their employees. The using of meal vouchers brings productivity gains, improving employee health, as well as high population consumption and additional VAT collection at macroeconomic level. This system shall help to deter undeclared work, support economic activity, maintain and create new jobs.

The Speaker announced the measures taken by the authorities to reduce the tax burden and increase the attractiveness of the economy for foreign investors. Andrian Candu mentioned simplifying the reporting procedure, reducing the number of control institutions, reducing four times the number of permissive acts required for business development. He also referred to the attractive tax regime for IT parks, introduced after recent amendments to legislation. "We shall come up with several good solutions, suggested by the economic agents benefiting from these modernizations in 2018," said Andrian Candu.

The economic agents also reported some problems related to lending to agriculture, capitalizing on grants from development partners, lack of labour force, changing land use, etc.

The ZEL Ungheni is one of the first economic zones created in Moldova. There were 34 residents, with over 2,400 employees, in first half of 2017 in ZEL Ungheni, according to statistical data. The recorded volume of sales amounted to about MDL 623 million, and the investments amounted to about $70 million.