Expert-Grup independent analytical centre says success of transition to growth model based on exports depends on degree of integration into EU market

Chisinau, 11 March /MOLDPRES/ - The success of the Moldovan economy’s transition to a growth model based on exports depends, essentially, on the degree of integration into the European Union’s market. An expert of the Expert-Grup Independent Analytical Centre, Alexandru Fala, has said in an analysis titled, Role of European Union in Stimulating Export in Moldova.   

„For more than one decade, most Moldovan exports have been oriented to the EU market. Thus, the economic dynamic from EU has become a fundamental factor which influences the evolution of the exports of goods and services from Moldova,” the export said. According to Fala, the supplies of products to EU represented a stabilizer for the Moldovan exports and contributed to the neutralization of the negative shocks coming from other markets. In this respect,  Alexandru Fala emphasized the years 2006, 2013 and 2014, when the Moldovan export had grown due to the exports to the EU market, in the context of the restrictive measures imposed by Russia.  

Since the 2006 year, the European market has been representing the main destination for the Moldovan goods and services and the exports of goods to this market were practically continuously expanding. On the period 2000-2018, the exports’ value increased from 165.3 million dollars to 1.86 billion dollars. During 2006-2014, the EU’s share in the exports of goods varied at around 50 per cent and after the creation of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) with EU, its share increased from 61.9 per cent in 2015 to 68.8 per cent in 2018, the analysis by Expert-Grup also reads.   

Alexandru Fala also said that, on the one hand, the exports to the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States had been negatively hit by the prohibitive measures imposed by Russia in 2006 and 2013 (bans on export of wines) and then in 2014 (imposing customs duties and prohibition of the exports in fruits and meat products), as well as by the economic recession in Ukraine (during 2013-2015) and Belarus (in 2015 and 2016). After the embargo from 2006, the deliveries to the CIS market re-launched and reached the maximum level of 928.1 million dollars in 2012; yet, starting from 2013, a continuous cut in the export to this region has been recorded (in 2018, the goods deliveries accounted for only 44.8 per cent of the value of the 2012 year).  

More than a half of the exports’ performance depends on the economic dynamic in EU, which, for its part, triggers a string of indirect effects: stimulation of investments, salaries’ increasing, enhancement of employment. This ascertaining reiterates the strategic importance of the full implementation of the Association Agreement with EU, in order to turn to good account the opportunities of the DCFTA with the European Union, Alexandru Fala added.