Moldova, Romania sign agreement on cutting tariffs for roaming services

Chisinau, 11 February /MOLDPRES/ - Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign Affairs and European Integration Minister Nicu Popescu, at a today’s joint meeting of the governments of Moldova and Romania, signed with Research, Innovation and Digitalization Minister of Romanian Ioan Marcel Bolos the agreement on cutting the tariffs for the supply of international roaming services and the services of international calls between Romania and Moldova, the Foreign Affairs and European Integration Ministry’s (MAEIE) press service has reported.   

„The agreement delivered by the Gavrilita Government is to bring benefits to all those who travel to Romania. The figures speak for themselves: in 2019, one year before the outbreak of the pandemic, a period when people travelled easier and with less cares abroad, our citizens who used mobile telephony in roaming regime in Romania made calls of 1,012,534 minutes and were called for1,307,964 minutes,’’ Deputy PM Nicu Popescu noted.      

Romania represents the principal country where users from Moldova consume roaming services, a half of the roaming services consumed during travels to the European Union. This fact prompted that, in 2019, the Moldovan diplomacy head, Nicu Popescu, within the cabinet led by Maia Sandu at that time, to start the procedures of consultation and negotiation with the Romanian side for removing the excessive costs of roaming and cutting the tariffs for ending the international calls between the two states up to the level of the tariffs regulated inside the European Union.  

After the agreement’s implementation, users from Moldova, while being in roaming in Romania, will be able to benefit from services of voice, data and SMS at tariffs close to the national ones. Thus, the tariffs will drop at least ten-fold for calls made in roaming from Romania to Moldova; no tariff will be imposed for the calls received in roaming in Romania from Moldova; the tariffs will decrease at least five-fold for the Internet services used in roaming in Romania.   

„I am happy that the discussions launched by Mrs. Maia Sandu in 2019, backed and promoted with much dedication by the colleagues from the present cabinet in the person of Mrs. Natalia Gavrilita and Deputy PM, Infrastructure and Regional Development Minister Andrei Spinu, who negotiated the provisions of this agreement in detail, is quantified in a new achievement, which will enhance the communication and the rapprochement between the citizens of Moldova and Romania. This is the first step; we have an ambitious plan: to cut the tariffs for roaming with all states where a large number of our fellow countrymen travel, study and live,’’ Minister Nicu Popescu added.  

Photo: MAEIE