Economic expert says share of unnoticed economic activities in Moldova's economy significant

Chisinau, 5 July /MOLDPRES/ - The share of the unnoticed activity, according to official data, in the last years has varied between 22 and 24 per cent of Moldova’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), except for the illegal production, an expert of the Expert-Grup Independent Analytical Centre, Iurie Morcotîlo, has said in a commentary on the unnoticed economy. He described the weight of the unnoticed economic activities in the economy as significant.     

In the last years, “the share of residents with informal jobs has increased significantly, from 30 per cent of all occupied residents in 2012 to almost 35 per cent in 2017.” According to the analyst, this increase represents a major challenge for Moldova’s sustainable development.   

Corruption is one of the important factors which influences the evolution of the unnoticed economy and which needs to be taken into account when working out policies in this sector. Because of the corruption, the state’s control institutions are not able to discover and punish the illegal activities and the fiscal evasion ones and the fostering of the unnoticed economy stimulates the corruption phenomenon, as it serves as source of “dirty money” for bribing civil servants, Iurie Morcotîlo said.    

The enhancement of the corruption level and of the unnoticed economy leads to the increase in the fiscal discrepancies, the difference between the fiscal incomes collected and the potential ones. In the last years, the fiscal discrepancy has been estimated at seven percent of GDP, which was equivalent to almost 9.5 billion lei in 2016.   

According to the National Statistics Bureau (BNS), the undeclared labour among wage earners in 2017 stood at 6.2 per cent, decreasing against the level of the 2016 year, respectively 7.1 per cent. The practice of employing without processing individual labour contracts, according to the Labour Code (based on oral agreements) is more frequent in agriculture (40 per cent) and trade (20.7 per cent).

Official statistics also shows that 14.9 per cent of all people occupied in the economy worked in the informal sector and 34.7 per cent had an informal job. The share of persons who produce exclusively for their consumption is of 43 per cent out of the informally occupied persons.  

BNS data shows that the weight of unnoticed economy in the GDP reduced from 34.6 per cent in 2000 to 22.4 per cent in 2016.  

(Reporter V. Bercu, editor A. Raileanu)