PREMIER CHICU OUTLINES 9 MAIN RESULTS OF HIS VISIT TO MOSCOW

Moldovan Prime Minister Ion Chicu has named 9 main results of the visit to Moscow he paid on Wednesday at the head of a Moldovan governmental delegation.

Speaking at the news conference organized at the Chisinau International Airport upon his return home last night, Chicu said that he had had “a very good, constructive meeting with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, and we have achieved accords important for Moldova”.

The Moldovan Prime Minister outlined the achieved results by item as follows:

1. “We have restarted a strategic dialog with Russia on the level of governments. This is very important. We will now be developing an open, pragmatic and mutually beneficial dialog;

2. The Russian side will support the reform process in Moldova, including the justice reform. This is very important for us and for Russia because serious investments in the Moldovan economy are being projected. Russia is interested in a favorable investment climate and in an independent and efficient judiciary system in Moldova necessary for the protection of the investments;

3. We have agreed on a considerable suppression of the price on the Russian natural gas. Starting from January 1, 2020 Moldova will be paying US$172-173 per a thousand cubic meters of the fuel. This past October 1, we had already received a discount of US$15 [down to about US$220 presently], so from January 1 we will begin paying another US$50 less. We also discussed in detail possible variants of gas supplying in case transit through Ukraine is stopped from January 1. We hope very much that the gas transit will be continued by using the decades-traditional route. But if not, we will start using the alternative routes we negotiated in Moscow on Wednesday;

4. We have agreed on launching a process that should eventually lead to full liberalization of our trade with the Russian Federation. At the present stage, we have agreed upon an increase – from 5 to 10 – of the categories of goods exported to Russia without applying duties. As a result, this increase will cover practically 70% of the nomenclature of the goods we export to Russia;

5. We have reached an agreement on extending from January 1 a duty-free trade (exports) on all the categories of goods that are exported in this regime at the present time;

6. We have agreed upon expanding the list of companies, working in the agricultural, fruit-and-vegetable and winemaking sectors, which will be permitted to export to Russia. For this, the Moldovan and Russian profiled authorities will intensify their collaboration to further improve quality control and to let more companies export onto the Russian market;

7. We have resolved the problem of our transport companies namely the problem of the so-called ‘dozvols’ – permissions for Moldovan truckers to transport goods to Russia. Moscow will shortly provide minimum 1,000 dozvols – enough to cover our current needs until the end of year. As for rooting out of corruption schemes related to issuing such permits, the Moldovan side assured Moscow that our truckers will be obtaining such dozvols right on the Russian border – through the Customs Service, so the entire process will be transparent. We have to take into consideration the Russian side’s interests because Russian transporters also want to participate in this process;

8. We have agreed upon launching the process of preparation and working out a mechanism of disposal of the Russian ammunition stored in Transnistria [about 20,000 tons]. The mechanism shall be transparent to a maximum for all, including for interested foreign partners;

9. We have received from the Russian side a principal agreement on its opening a US$500-million credit line for Moldova for various infrastructural projects, first and foremost for the development of the transport infrastructure and road construction. The Moldovan and Russian Ministries of Finance will agree upon credit terms, and a final decision will be taken with an account of the Republic of Moldova’s interests”, stated Prime Minister Ion Chicu.

The Premier said also that he had invited his Russian colleague Dmitry Medvedev to pay a visit to Moldova, and that the invitation was accepted with gratitude.

“I made an important conclusion after the visit to Moscow. Moldova and Russia are suffering a considerable deficit of communication. We haven’t have contacts on the governmental level for so long. And we lost much on this – our citizens lost, and economy, but not indeed the politicians who had let all that happen”, said Ion Chicu.