EXPORT GROWTH IS VITAL FOR MOLDOVA’S ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT – EXPERTS

For economic growth, Moldova needs a considerable growth of exports, said Director of the Center for Strategic Studies and Reforms (CISR) Galina Selari at the Friday’s press conference.

She said that despite formal orientation of republic’s economy to exporting, in reality its development is still based on the internal market.

“If comparing the volume of external trade with the pre-crisis period (2013), the volume of exports to the CIS countries fell 50%, while to the EU – grew only by 17%, consequently, the real volume of the exported goods has considerably fallen”, the expert said.

According to her, the main problem is that during all the years of republic independence, the problem of exports slowly transforms into the political choice: integration to the East or the West?

“So far, Moldova is ready for the European market neither in terms of quality, nor in quantity, while European experts directly point at the fact that Moldova should not lose trade contacts with traditional partners in the CIS. The problem is that the adoption of economic solutions is closely connected with politics and this considerably brakes the process of Moldova’s development”, Selari said.

Expert Victor Ciobanu said that the republic’s economic model is built on massive importing and internal consumption, which obviously does not help growth of production and job creation, while the strengthening of the national currency and the limited internal resources make the situation even more deplorable.

“The question is how to seek sustainable sales market for Moldovan goods, how to occupy a certain economic niche. The IT sphere may become a priority branch, also we cannot ignore agriculture and though many experts say this vector has no perspective, still more than 60% of Moldovan population is living in rural area and we have to take into account this fact”, he said.

Talking about prices and foreign currency exchange, Galina Selari pointed at the fact that despite the strengthening of the Moldovan leu in 2017, prices did not become smaller.

“There is an economic paradox in Moldova: when the national currency is cheapening - prices are growing, when it strengthens – prices are just fixing, but not going down”, she said, recommending to take into account two factors – real and possible – at forecasting the national currency exchange rate.

“The first is the sustainable growth of remittances from abroad which will for sure express in Moldovan leu strengthening, while the second is reduction of a too high mandatory reserve rate from the side of the NBM (40%). However, it is difficult to tell now if the regulator will take such step or not, especially in the context of the parliamentary election year”, the expert said.

According to press conference participants, on the basis of all the above-mentioned, the 2018 will become a year of populist decisions and PR policy.