Foreign affairs minister, World Trade Organization's deputy director general discuss Moldova's cooperation with WTO

Chisinau, 22 October /MOLDPRES/ - Foreign Affairs and European Integration Minister Tudor Ulianovschi and Deputy Director General of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Alan Wolff, on a 22-25 October working visit to Moldova, at an invitation by the Moldovan diplomacy head, discussed the degree and pace of implementation of the commitments taken by Moldova after its accession to WTO in 2001, the Foreign Affairs and European Integration Ministry’s press service has reported.   

At the meeting, Minister Tudor Ulianovschi reiterated the Moldovan government’s commitment to further promote the multilateral system of commerce, as well as the fact that Moldova remained a conspicuous actor on the world trade stage. Ulianovschi noted that Moldova continued to observe the international commitments and was constantly implementing the reforms assumed in such sectors as: trade with goods and services, development of small- and medium-sized enterprises through facilitating the import-export procedures and customs transit, implementation of sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures, according to the WTO rigours, etc.    

Tudor Ulianovschi and Alan Wolff tackled also problems related to the new reforms in the public procurement sector. The officials stressed the need to enhance and ensure transparency in the procedures of organizing tenders in Moldova, issue of electronic trade and international commercial litigations between WTO member states.

For his part, WTO Deputy Director General Alan Wolff said that Moldova’s presence in the world trade system had considerably increased in the last years, preponderantly by an active involvement of Moldovan diplomats, who hold negotiations with diverse WTO members, in order to reduce the commercial and economic discrepancies between the developed countries, the developing ones and the poorly developed states. The official noted that such an approach contributed to Moldova’s positioning as an important actor in the promotion and development of the provisions of the multilateral trade system.

In the context, Minister Tudor Ulianovschi appreciated the Openness of the World Trade Organization for providing technical assistance to Moldova, from which about 60 civil servants in charge of diverse sectors of the national economy, related to the WTO’s activity field, benefit. 

The director general of the World Trade Organization will participate in the Regional Forum on Public Procurement, organized by the WTO Secretariat and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, in partnership with Moldova’s government. Attending the event are about 100 representatives from 20 states of Eastern Europe and Central Asia.