CONTROLLING AUTHORITIES WERE USED TO ESTABLISH MONOPOLY ON WALNUT EXPORT - MP

State control authorities of the Republic of Moldova were used for establishing a monopoly on the walnut export, reported MP Igor Munteanu, Chairman of the parliamentary Standing Committee for Economy, Budget and Finance.

He recalled that back in 2016, the walnut trade was considered a very successful business; therefore, so many businessmen planted large plantations, export of walnuts grew steadily and Moldova accounted 6% of the world market and became a member of a specialized organization.

"In 2016, export fell sharply by 35% or 300 million lei, while the purchase price dropped by more than 50%. This crisis provoked a lot of problems for exporters and poor population, as walnuts sale was an important source of income for them", noted the MP.

According to him, the parliamentary commission has already carried out an investigation, which revealed that to take part of the market, the government of the incumbent Chairman of the Democratic Party Pavel Filip had created a commission under the pretext of combating walnuts smuggling, VAT and tax evasion, as well as combating forgery of documents for the purchase.

He explained that the campaigns for walnuts collection and export were most often punished on charges of smuggling and tax evasion due to the lack of purchase documents, which blocked the economic agents' activity and led to the arrests of thousands of tons of walnuts, as well as termination of some companies' activity. In addition, even if the companies had the purchase documents, they were recognized as false ones, since the seller refused to confirm the act of sale.

"Those, who promised the economic agents to solve their problems with the regulatory authorities for money, appeared at the same time. The parliamentary commission received confirmation that some people and structures demanded US$10 thousand for each consignment or US$0.5 for each kilogram of walnuts. Thus, the purchase price plummeted from 120-140 lei down to 40 lei per kg. Other companies took advantage of this situation and increased sharply the export of walnuts", said the Deputy.

Munteanu urged economic agents to return to the pre-crisis purchase prices, because otherwise this will be considered as an attempt to keep the price low through the cartel, which can be proved by the intervention f the Competition Council.