Moldova, United Kingdom sign Agreement on Strategic Partnership, Commerce and Cooperation

Chisinau, 24 December /MOLDPRES/ - Foreign Affairs and European Integration Minister Aureliu Ciocoi and Ambassador of the United Kingdom to Moldova Steven Fisher today signed the Agreement on Strategic Partnership, Commerce and Cooperation at a ceremony held at the headquarters of the Foreign Affairs and European Integration Ministry (MAEIE). The document is to regulate the post-Brexit Moldovan-British relations, the MAEIE press service has reported.    

During press statements, held after the signing ceremony, Aureliu Ciocoi said that the bilateral agreement was aimed at ensuring the continuity of the relations between Moldova and the United Kingdom, as well as at their advancing at the level of strategic partnership, consolidating the economic and commercial cooperation between the sides, in order to achieve the liberalization of trade, as well as at contributing to the creation of conditions of cooperation in the most diverse sectors of mutual interest.

The Moldovan diplomacy head conveyed public thanks for the activity of the group of negotiators from Chisinau and London, which, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, gave final touches to the text of this document in 8 rounds of consultations. In the context, Ciocoi stressed that the document brought good novelties also for economic agents and end consumers: with the signing and after the ratification of the agreement by both countries, it will be enforced provisionally, which will ensure the free access of exporting companies on the markets of goods and services in friendly conditions, so that the trade relations between the two countries will not be interrupted following the ceasing of the implementation of the Association Agreement signed by Moldova and the European Union on the United Kingdom.  

The diplomats also said that the Agreement saw, for the first time ever, the creation of a platform of Political and Strategic Dialogue, which will ensure the Agreement’s implementation and the first meeting of this group is scheduled to be held in early 2021.