IMF mission starts visit to Moldova

Chisinau, 13 September /MOLDPRES/ - Prime Minister Pavel Filip today had a meeting with the team of experts of the International Monetary Fund, led by Ruben Atoyan, which started a working visit to Moldova. The PM congratulated Ruben Atoyan on taking over Moldova’s file. He assured the IMF experts of every needed support for carrying out the mission, the government’s communication and protocol department has reported.   

„The agreement with IMF is very important for the government. In 2016, when we faced a banking crisis, one of the principal instruments which helped up improve the situation in this sector was the agreement with IMF. The commitments taken before IMF helped us persuade the political establishment and we are willing to maintain in continuation the relation with the Fund,” Pavel Filip said.

The prime minister said the cabinet was further making efforts to improve the state of things in the fields of Moldova’s development, as well as for carrying out the provisions of the programme with IMF. Thus, during the 2018 year, a positive dynamic of all macroeconomic and budgetary indexes has been recorded: the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 3.7 per cent in the first three months and the budget revenues increased by 12.5 per cent. At the same time, the government continues promoting structural and sectoral reforms and in the last period, it has managed to promote important packages of laws related to the banking sector, amendments to the state budget law for 2018 and the budgetary and fiscal policy, as well as a string of amendments to the legislation and normative acts in the energy sector. The implementation of the stipulations of the programme with IMF has been ensured in this way.     

Head of the IMF Mission Ruben Atoyan said that the IMF was a partner of the government and was here to help. On the next period, the IMF experts’ team will evaluate the macroeconomic situation in Moldova, budgetary and fiscal policies, provisions of the state budget for 2019 and progress made in the banking sector.

The Fund’s Mission is on a visit to Chisinau on 13-20 September. This is a working visit and not a mission of assessing the implementation of the programme with IMF. Such working visits, besides the standard cycle of programme evaluations, represent a usual practice of IMF in relation with the countries which have programmes backed by the Fund.